It was Afghan girl Shakila Zareen’s dream to meet Bollywood superstar Salman Khan someday. After all, she loves him!

In India to reconstruct a once-beautiful face left badly-disfigured by a gun-toting, cruel husband, Shakila met her heartthrob today in Mumbai.

And imagine her joy when Salman Khan confided that his ancestors too fled Afghanistan six generations ago for the very same reason she is in India — lawlessness. “And it’s still the same. They follow Islam, they say. But they don’t follow any religion. All they believe is in dominating women, unlike Islam which talks so much about woman power and their rights,” Salman Khan gently told Shakila, after hearing her desperate story of abuse that hopefully will find answers here.

And, in this case, Deccan Chronicle was only too happy to be the dream merchant! With loads of help, of course, from actor Salman Khan’s father, the very dear Salim Khan.

We flew her down to Mumbai from Delhi where she is being treated by doctors at the Apollo Hospital.