Shah Rukh Khan beats up Farah Khan's husband Shirish Kunder

Actor Shah Rukh Khan reportedly beat up scriptwriter/director Shirish Kunder, the husband of once his close friend and director Farah Khan, at a party thrown on Sunday night in Mumbai by actor Sanjay Dutt to celebrate the success of his film Agneepath.

After the Shah Rukh-Salman brawl at Katrina Kaif's birthday bash in 2008, Khan again finds himself involved in a public fight. The grapevine is abuzz about Khan having punched Kunder at Dutt's party at a lounge bar in the city. The bust up is said to have occurred late at night when an irked Khan allegedly roughed up his former friend's husband, who has been very vocal against the film star.

According to reports, an inebriated Kunder was following Khan around and even entered the bathroom with him. An irritated Khan then allegedly pinned him to a sofa and punched and abused him. Despite repeated attempts Khan remained unavailable for comment.

According to sources Dutt who had to intervene and separate the two, also slapped Kunder for allegedly sending lewd messages to his wife Manyata and for misbehaving with a girl at the party. Farah and Kunder spoke about the incident in a statement but denied they were going to pursue the matter with police.

Kunder took to his Twitter account to say: "Thanks for all your concern & wishes. We are very grateful. Contrary to rumours, we have no intention of filing a FIR or police complaint."

Meanwhile Farah Khan's statement on the incident is as follows: "Shah Rukh has always told me that physical abuse is the worst way to sort out a problem and that it means the person who's hitting has either a personal or professional crisis going on and it saddens me to see him doing the same."

Khan had joined the party late at night after hosting the 57th Idea Filmfare Awards with Ranbir Kapoor. Once very good friends, Farah choreographed Khan in several of his films and directed him in 'Main Hoon Naa' and 'Om Shanti Om' but their friendship soured after she cast Akshay Kumar in 'Tees Maar Khan' in 2010. They tried to patch things up later but Kunder took potshots at Khan at the time of the release of his dream project RA.One.

The actor's enmity with Kunder apparently stems from the days when he refused to do his film 'Joker'. Kunder, who also once used to be close to Khan, occasionally blasts the actor on his twitter page, recently calling his sci-fi 'Ra.One' "a 150 cr firework fizzle". Two of the celebrities present at the party, however, came out in support of Khan, saying Kunder had it coming.

"Shahrukh is supr rockin.. Good he gave it 2 shirish. people shud learn 2 b grateful to king khan, aftrall he has been so supportive 2 farah. Glad@iamsrk told shirish off n put him in place. srk has done so much 4 farah. they shud b grateful n not abusing srk (sic)," Ameesha Patel tweeted.

"I was present at Sanj's party & Without Any Bias I Fully Support Shah Rukh (sic)," celebrity photographer Dabboo Ratnani tweeted.

"We didn't know what was happening. We saw SRK enter. Then we saw him head towards Shirish from behind the director. SRK pulled Shirish down to the ground by his long hair. We were all shocked. We had never seen SRK behave this way before," said an eyewitness.

"Before anyone could react, Baba Dewan, the owner of Aurus, ran in and intervened. SRK told Dewan to keep out. Dewan said the place belonged to him and he must intervene. The fight would've been prolonged had Sanjay Dutt not pulled SRK away from the ugly scene," the eyewitness added. Kunder apparently left immediately.

(With additional information from agencies)