"Slumdog" Melee: Star's Mother, Stepmother Streetfight
April 20 2009, Published 5:39 a.m. ET
A huge fight, sparked by allegations that the father of 9-year-old Slumdog Millionaire star Rubina Ali tried to sell her on the black market, broke out on the streets of Mumbai's slums Sunday between the mother and stepmother of the young actress.
See more photos of the blow-by-blow fight and Rubina's dad being questioned by authorities.
Ali's father, Rafiq Qureshi, denied the rumors he tried to put up his celebrity daughter for $300,000, according to reports. He denied the accusations to People Monday, as he said the rumors were a "lie made up by foreign journalists playing games with me."
There were no games Sunday, as the women clashed in a tense, physical struggle. The women were photographed trading punches and slaps as the child star and neighbors looked on.
"You treacherous expletive give my daughter back," Ali's birth mother, Khushi, told stepmother Munni as she repeatedly smacked her in the face, according to Daily Mail.
Stepmother Munni, after the fight, talked to reporters about why she felt birth mother Khushi was so moved to violence against her.
"Khushi has been after Rubina since the time she went to the Oscars. For seven years before that, she didn't care," she said, crying. "Why would we sell Rubina? She is her father's favorite. I love Khushi's children more than she would have loved them."
Qureshi and his brother Mohammed, according to Daily News, have been allegedly scheming to try and profit from the film's international commercial success, having said they are not receiving enough of the profits.
The newspaper reported that an undercover reporter quoted Ali's uncle, Mohammed Qureshi, as saying of the girl: "The child is special now. This is not an ordinary child. This is an Oscar child."
(Photo: FAME)
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