Is Katrina Kaif heading down the Aishwarya road in Salman Khan’s life?

The summer’s most-awaited Bollywood potboiler is set for release less than a month from now, yet the drama surrounding its lead pair is providing enough real-life action for a thriller of its own.

For those who haven’t guessed already, the film in question is ‘Ek Tha Tiger’, with superstar Salman Khan’s pairing with one-time rumoured beau, Katrina Kaif, bearing the brunt of media scrutiny once again as stories of abuse and mistreatment does the round of the rumour mills.

Kaif’s situation is already being compared to that of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s, who came out to the media several years ago, accusing Khan of physically, mentally and emotionally abusing her during their turbulent courtship that even saw the former beauty queen caught on camera with bruises on several occasion.

The current drama surrounding Khan and Kaif came into the foray once again when rumour mills were abuzz with stories that less than a month ago the hot tempered actor had even hit the “New York” starlet with a stick during the making of ‘Ek Tha Tiger’.

The story alleged that Kaif had walked out of the makeup man in a skimpy outfit and Khan took objection in a violent way.

While neither party has commented on the story, one recalls a similar story that did the rounds at the peak of their alleged romance, where Khan was accused of slapping Kaif in public during an argument.

At last week’s press conference for the Yash Raj Films’ first look of ‘Ek Tha Tiger’, Khan made a public jibe at Kaif in front of the press over her nifty moves in the track ‘Maashallah’, saying: “Katrina is very hard working. She rehearses for 5-6 days for every song.

“Today whatever is Katrina, her success rate is because of her sheer hard work. However, I am very talented so I don’t have to work hard.”

This is not the first time such jibes have been dished out, directed towards Kaif.

Sources close to the 27-year-old actress say that Kaif is too much in awe of Khan to ever publicly denounce him, considering it was him who played her godfather in Bollywood to land her some plum roles at the start of her career, which kicked off with the disastrous “Boom”.

A tough price to pay one can say.