As soon as Mandakini’s name started being associated with Dawood Ibrahim, her film career started moving towards the slope. The discussions between Mandakini and Dawood Ibrahim started in 1994. At that time when the pictures of Mandakini with Dawood Ibrahim came out from a cricket stadium in Dubai, there was a sensation everywhere. There was a buzz in the industry that Mandakini was having an affair with Dawood.
These pictures of Mandakini with Dawood went viral
A year before that i.e. in 1994, the Mumbai Mayanagari was shaken by the bomb blasts. The main accused in the blasts was Dawood Ibrahim, who had fled from India at that time. In such a situation, when the pictures of Mandakini with Dawood Ibrahim went viral, fear was created in everyone’s heart. It was discussed that Mandakini is special to Dawood. It is said that Dawood Ibrahim was so infatuated with Mandakini that he did not shy away from threatening the filmmakers to get her films.

Viral picture of Mandakini and Dawood Ibrahim
Dawood’s dominance over Bollywood
At that time, Dawood Ibrahim had a lot of dominance in Bollywood. His parties were always in discussion in the Hindi film industry. Mandakini was also in awe of Dawood, though she later denied this in an interview and said that she had only friendly relations with Dawood Ibrahim. In an interview to ‘Mid Day’ in 2010, when asked questions about her relationship with Dawood Ibrahim, Mandakini said that she does not want to talk about him anymore.
Mandakini said this on the relationship with Dawood
Mandakini (Mandakini on affair with Dawood Ibrahim) had said, ‘I do not want people to now associate my name with Dawood or think about that incident. Now that is a thing of the past. I feel very bad to see that people are still cashing in my name by linking that incident. But I had cleared everything at that time also. After some time you get irritated. If you want to improve your image then it does not mean that you keep making statements every 6 months.
Name associated with Dawood, so Mandakini did not get films
Even though Mandakini had denied the affair with Dawood Ibrahim, but perhaps to say that there was a friendly relationship between her and Dawood Ibrahim, was not enough. At least not for the police. When the police was investigating the Mumbai blasts, the actress was also questioned due to Mandakini’s closeness with Dawood. In this case, Mandakini later got a clean chit, but her film career was ruined.
Mandakini left films and married a Buddhist monk
Mandakini’s career stopped getting films. No producer-director wanted to work with him. Mandakini married Dr. Kagyur T. Rinpoche Thakur, a Buddhist monk, in 1990. But his career had to bear the brunt of the connection with Dawood. As a result, Mandakini had to say goodbye to the film industry in 1996.