It’s been more than 14 years since Lalit Modi left India. In May 2010, he left the country and since then everyone has been trying to figure out what circumstances made the businessman, the founder and first chairman of the IPL, leave his nation. Recently, Lalit Modi for the first time broke his silence on the matter during his appearance at the Raj Shamani’s podcast ‘Figuring Out’. Raj Shamani has interviewed all the biggies of Bollywood like Kangana Ranaut, Diljit Dosanjh, Vicky Kaushal, and more, sat with Lalit Modi and then they had a candid conversation about the threats made to the latter’s life, the untold side of Dawood Ibrahim, and more.“I did leave the country! When there was a death threat to me! There was no legal case to start with! I had a death threat from Dawood Ibrahim” said Lalit Modi.
“Speaking about the Dawood side of this. I was told by my personal bodyguard, ‘You need to use the back entrance at the airport where VIP planes land.’ When I arrived, I saw Himanshu Roy, the deputy commissioner of police, waiting for me. He told me, ‘We cannot protect you anymore. There is a hit on your life, and we can only ensure your safety for the next 12 hours.’ They could only protect me from the airport to the Four Seasons Hotel in Mumbai,” he added.
As Raj Shamani dug deeper, he made Lalit Modi delve into the dangerous attempts made by Dawood Ibrahim. Lalit Modi revealed, “Dawood Ibrahim was after me because they were fixing matches, and I had a zero policy for match-fixing. For me, anti-corruption was a very big part of my thing, and I thought the integrity of the game was extremely important.”
“Dawood Ibrahim did take strategic shots at me in many places, all of which is documented. These weren’t just empty threats—they were genuine, life-threatening attempts that could’ve ended my life. But I stood firm on my principles,” Mr. Modi elaborated.
The conversation was a rare, unfiltered look into the life of a man who has always operated on the edge of power, scandal, and survival.
