Mumbai: The 70s smuggler-turned-political activist Haji Mastan is back on the radar of Bollywood plots. Prompted by the success of Shootout at Lokhandwala, Balaji Films along with Sunil Shetty's Popkorn Entertainment is all set to make a biopic titled Haji Mastan.

But this time, Mastan's family is putting it's foot down because he is always portrayed as a mafia chief by Bollywood.

“Jeetendra and Sunil Shetty know nothing about Haji Mastan's life. If they make the film, I will sue them,” Haji Mastan’s adopted son Sundar Shekhar said.

Meanwhile, Balaji Films is playing it safe by not revealing how they plan to present the 70s don.

But this is not the first time that Haji Mastan is being interpreted on celluloid. The tendency to borrow from Haji's story began 25 years ago with the cult classic Deewar, in which filmmaker Yash Chopra told a captivating story of a dockworker with uniform number 786 who rises to become a successful smuggler.

“The script of Deewar was written by Salim Javed. The rags-to-riches feel is something that will work anytime because people can relate to it,” Chopra said.

Since then, Haji Mastan has reappeared time and again in Hindi films. Notably, in director Ram Gopal Varma’s Company as the helpless old don who concedes his empire to Mallik, just like Dawood Ibrahim.

Mastan was also portrayed as the principled underworld man who won't trade in narcotics, played marvelously by actor Pankaj Kapoor in Vishal Bharadwaj's Maqbool.

“In films we focus on a character and when the character's story itself becomes interesting then the filmmaker wants to express it. If a film is being made on Haji Mastan's life, then the filmmaker must be knowing what this man wanted his life to be like. So why not?” writer of Satya, Saurabh Shukla said.

Thirteen years later, the power centers of the mafia having shifted, the Mastan family is smarting with the lack of recognition from the Mumbai film industry. So while the Balaji biopic might ruffle a few political feathers, the story of a dockworker who rose from the murky ports of Mumbai to rule the smuggling trade for two decades will stay on to inspire creative minds.