Abdu Rozik

Timeline

1. 2003Born on 23 September in Tajikistan, in the Panjakent district in the north west of the country.^[1]^[2]
2. 2008Diagnosed at about five with rickets and a growth hormone deficiency, conditions his family could not afford to treat.^[1]^[2]
3. 2010sSings for tips in the markets and streets of Panjakent and is frequently out of school because of poverty.^[2]
4. 2019Begins working with the Tajik rapper and blogger Baron, who becomes his mentor and takes him to Dubai.^[2]
5. 2021Posts a video of himself singing the Hindi song Enna Sona, and challenges the Russian fighter Hasbulla Magomedov to a bout.^[2]
6. 2022Sings at the IIFA Awards in Abu Dhabi, is announced by Salman Khan as the first contestant of Bigg Boss 16 on 27 September, and enters the house on 1 October.^[2]^[3]
7. 2023Leaves the Bigg Boss house on Day 105 in mid January, appears in the film Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, and joins Khatron Ke Khiladi 13 as a guest.^[2]^[4]
8. 2024Gets engaged to Amira in Sharjah on 24 April, postpones the July wedding, then calls it off. Makes his boxing debut in Dubai on 6 July.^[5]^[7]
9. 2025Is detained at Dubai International Airport in July over theft allegations, is released, and his management denies he was arrested.^[6]

Who Abdu Rozik is

Abdu Rozik is a singer and social media personality from Tajikistan who has lived in Dubai since he was a teenager. His full name is Abdurozik Savriqul Muhammadroziqi, and he performs as Abdu Rozik. He sings in Tajik, Farsi and Hindi, has released a string of Tajik songs and music videos, and became a household name in India through Bigg Boss 16 in 2022 and 2023.^[2]

The reason he is known beyond music is a medical one. He was diagnosed as a child with a growth hormone deficiency, a condition that can be treated if a family can pay for it, and his could not. He is about a hundred centimetres tall, and the condition has shaped almost every part of his public story, from the street singing that supported his family to the boxing matches he has taken on as an adult.^[1][2]

He is also, by any measure, a professional entertainer rather than a novelty. The career has been deliberate: Tajik songs first, then a Hindi song video that travelled, then a reality show, then a film appearance, then a boxing debut. Each step was taken in front of a camera and each one widened the audience, which is why a man from a mountain town in Tajikistan has a following in a country he had never visited before 2022.^[2][4]

Panjakent, and singing for tips

Rozik was born on 23 September 2003 in the Panjakent district of Tajikistan, and the village given in profiles of him is Gizhdarva.^[1][2] It is a poor part of a poor country, and the family's circumstances are part of the record rather than an aside: the reason his condition went untreated is that the treatment cost money they did not have.^[2]

He was often out of school. What he did instead was sing in the markets and on the streets of Panjakent for tips, which is how a boy with a distinctive voice and a distinctive appearance first learned that strangers would stop and listen. The Wikipedia entry on him records the detail without embellishment, and the profiles that followed add that he was performing in public from about six years of age.^[1][2]

That period is the part of his life he refers to least. What he says about it in interviews is mostly about his family and about the cat he had as a child, which appears in his official biography as a small, human detail in the middle of a hard story.^[2] It is also the period that explains the rest: a child who learns that his voice can be exchanged for money has already learned the first lesson of the career he ended up having.

Baron, Dubai and the move that changed everything

The turn came in 2019, when the Tajik rapper and blogger Baron, whose real name is Behruz, took an interest in him. Baron gave him mentorship and money, and, more importantly, convinced his father that singing was a future worth allowing.^[2] That permission is the hinge of the story. Without it there is no move to Dubai, and without the move there is no career of the kind he has now.

The two went to Dubai together, and the city has been his base since. It gave him a recording industry, an audience that mixes Central Asian, South Asian and Arab listeners, and a set of stages that are within a short flight of the Indian market where he later became famous.^[2] The decision to base himself in the Gulf rather than in Dushanbe or Moscow is the single most consequential business choice of his life.

He has since described Dubai as home in the way that migrants do, with gratitude and a certain distance. He holds a United Arab Emirates Golden Visa, the long residency permit the country gives to people it wants to keep, and the profiles of him say he received it at seventeen, which if accurate would make him one of the youngest recipients from Central Asia.^[1][6]

The songs, and the Hindi turn

His early catalogue is in Tajik and Dari: Ohi Dili Zor, Chaki Chaki Boron and Modar are the titles that appear most often in write ups of him.^[2] These are songs about longing and family, sung in a high, clear voice, and they are the reason he had an audience before India knew his name. The video for Ohi Dili Zor is the one that circulated most widely and is usually described as his breakthrough.^[1][2]

The Indian chapter began with a cover. In 2021 he posted a video of himself singing Enna Sona, the Arijit Singh song from the film Ok Jaanu, and the clip travelled through Indian social media in a way that a Tajik song could not.^[2] A year later he was invited to the twenty second IIFA Awards in Abu Dhabi, where he sang Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga from the 1994 film 1942: A Love Story and dedicated it to Salman Khan.^[2]

That dedication was not a throwaway. Salman Khan was in the audience, the song was chosen for him, and within weeks Khan had introduced Rozik as the first contestant of his television show.^[2][3] Whatever else is said about the arithmetic of Indian celebrity, that sequence is documented: a cover song, an awards stage, a dedication, and a place on the biggest reality show on Hindi television.

Bigg Boss 16

Bigg Boss 16 was announced in September 2022, and Salman Khan introduced Abdu Rozik as its first confirmed contestant at a press conference on 27 September, before the rest of the cast had been named.^[3] The season began on 1 October, and he was in the house from Day 1.^[2]

He stayed for 105 days, which is most of the season, and left in the middle of January 2023 in an exit that the show treated as a departure rather than an eviction. India Today reported that he left the house on Day 106 and that the other contestants were in tears.^[4] The reason reported at the time was work he had already committed to outside, including a tour, rather than a failure in the game.

His time in the house produced two things that outlasted it. The first was the song Chota Bhaijaan, whose video was shot with a set of guest stars who came into the house to film with him, including Honey Singh, Varun Dhawan, Parineeti Chopra, Shehnaaz Gill, Mika Singh and Urvashi Rautela.^[2] The second was the position he occupied in the house, which was that of the person everybody protected. Farah Khan, visiting during Family Week, cooked for him and described him as one of her new found brothers, and the clip ran across the entertainment press.^[8]

That position is worth noting because it explains his career afterwards. He left the show more popular than several contestants who stayed longer, and the popularity was of a specific kind: affectionate rather than admiring. Indian television rarely knows what to do with that, and the work that followed, a film appearance and reality show guest spots, was shaped by it.^[2]

Films, Khatron Ke Khiladi and the reality circuit

Before Bigg Boss he had already filmed a part in Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, the Salman Khan film that released in April 2023.^[2] It was a small role in a large production, and it placed him in the one kind of Indian film that could accommodate him without turning him into a curiosity: a star vehicle with a crowd of comic side characters.

In 2023 he joined Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi 13 as a guest entrant, which is the standard next step for a Bigg Boss alumnus.^[2] The show is built on physical stunts, and his participation was reported as a test of what he could do rather than as a joke, which is consistent with the way he has talked about his own capacities.

The television work has continued in smaller formats. He has appeared on Entertainment Ki Raat Housefull and, more recently, on Laughter Chefs Unlimited Entertainment 2, the cooking comedy show that has become a fixture for former reality contestants.^[1][2] None of these appearances is large, and together they add up to a living in the Indian market that does not depend on music sales.

The Hasbulla question

In 2021 Rozik challenged the Russian fighter and internet personality Hasbulla Magomedov to a fight. The two are often compared because both are young men with dwarfism who became famous online, and the proposed bout was covered as a novelty by media in several countries.^[2]

It did not happen, and the reason is on the record. The Russian Dwarf Athletic Association refused to sanction it and called the idea unethical, which ended the only route by which the fight could have been made official.^[2] The refusal is a useful corrective to the way the story was told at the time: what looked like two entertainers agreeing to a stunt was, to the association representing people with the same condition, a spectacle it would not put its name to.

Rozik did go on to fight, but in a regulated setting and against a different opponent. His boxing debut came at Social Knockout 3 at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai on 6 July 2024, an event he discussed in advance with the World Boxing Council's own publication.^[7] The date matters for another reason: it was the week he was supposed to be getting married, and he had postponed the wedding to take the fight.

The wedding that was called off

In April 2024 Rozik announced his engagement to Amira, an Emirati woman, at a ceremony in Sharjah on 24 April. The wedding was set for 7 July 2024.^[5] He then postponed it, saying that the boxing match and the money it would bring were the priority, and that Amira supported the decision.^[1][5]

By September the postponement had become a cancellation. Mid-day reported that he had called off the wedding five months after the engagement, citing cultural differences.^[5] The same report noted that the engagement had itself been the subject of cruel comment online, with people asking why a woman would marry him, which he had addressed at the time.

He is not married, and any page that lists a wife is wrong.^[5] The distinction between an engagement that was announced publicly, a wedding that was postponed and then cancelled, and a marriage that never took place is exactly the kind of detail that aggregator profiles tend to lose, and in his case at least one of them has lost it.

The Dubai airport detention

In July 2025 Rozik was detained at Dubai International Airport over allegations of theft. India Today reported on 13 July that he had been detained and then released, and that his management denied he had been arrested and said it was preparing legal action over the reporting.^[6] The reports that followed described a release on conditional bail.

The substance of the allegation has not been established in public. No charge sheet, court order or police statement setting out the case has been published, and his side has denied any wrongdoing.^[6] What can be said is that he was held at an airport, released, and that the episode became a news story in India within hours, which is a measure of how closely his movements are watched there.

His own response, in the days after, was that he was fine and that the matter would be dealt with legally.^[6] Nothing in the record available to this entry shows a conviction or a continuing case, and the page does not treat the allegation as proved.

What has not been confirmed

The name of the condition is given differently in different places. Wikipedia describes it as dwarfism caused by a growth hormone deficiency that could have been treated.^[2] The aggregator profile calls it rickets together with a growth hormone deficiency.^[1] Both descriptions appear in the reporting, and the entry does not choose between them because no medical record has been published.

His exact height is not officially recorded. He is usually reported at 3 feet 3 inches, or about a hundred centimetres, and he has himself spoken about growing a little after years at 94 centimetres.^[1]

His net worth is an aggregator estimate of about 840,000 dollars as of 2024 and has no stated source.^[1] Given that his income comes from performances, appearances and endorsements rather than from filings, no accurate figure can be established from public documents.

The claim that he trained as a boxer under Amir Khan appears in the aggregator profile and is repeated in some Indian write ups.^[1] It is not in his Wikipedia entry and no interview with either man confirming a training arrangement was found for this entry, so it is reported here as a claim rather than as a fact.^[2]

His parents' names and the details of his siblings come from the aggregator alone, and the entry does not print them for that reason.^[1] The village of Gizhdarva in the Panjakent district is also aggregator sourced, though it is consistent with the Panjakent references in the better sourced accounts.^[1][2]

The reason he left Bigg Boss 16 is reported rather than confirmed by him. The show recorded it as a voluntary exit on Day 105, and the press attributed it to prior work commitments, including a tour.^[1][2][4] No statement from him setting out the reason in his own words was found.

The details of the July 2025 airport case remain unknown. The allegation, the identity of the complainant and the status of any legal proceedings have not been published, and his management's denial is the only account from his side.^[6]