Mumtaj

 ( Living People ) 

During her stint at the acting course, she was recruited by veteran filmmaker Chetan Anand to work on his film produced by Bharat Shah, with Shah Rukh Khan in the lead role. For one and a half years, Mumtaj waited for the shoot to begin, before the project was shelved following Anand's death. Later in 1997, Tamil director T. Rajender signed her to play the lead role of a pop singer in his romantic drama film, Monisha En Monalisa (1999). The film took two years to make owing to production troubles and Rajender's political activity, before opening to negative reviews from critics in April 1999.

She made a supporting role in S. J. Surya's Kushi (2000), where she portrayed a glamorous college student alongside Vijay and Jyothika. Her performance in the song "Kattipudi Kattipudida" won her appreciation and further film offers, and as a result, Mumtaj was able to increase her appearance fee substantially.

In her subsequent projects, rather than her acting skills, her performances in song sequences won her appreciation and she regularly accepted to feature in . In the early 2000s, some of the more notable music videos shot on her included "Macha Machiniye" from Star (2001), "Malai Malai" from Chocolate (2001),"Missi Missi Papa" from Looty and "Subbamma Subbamma" from Roja Kootam (2002).

Despite the success of her song appearances, she was keen to prolong her career in the film industry by selecting performance-oriented roles and subsequently announced her intentions of reducing one-song appearances.

In 2003, she turned producer and financed the film Thathi Thavadhu Manasu, featuring her alongside rookie actresses Sona, Urvasi Patel and Sindhuri in the leading roles. The film was based around two real life incidents — the murder of a lawyer in bright daylight and the accident in which 40 individuals were killed. The film performed poorly at the box office, with a critic writing "the movie's approach struggles between two completely opposite directions — a cheap, exploitative film and a tearjerker" and that "the producer seems to have banked on the film's glamour to bring in the viewers since that is what the title and the movie's promos focus on" and that "this is unfortunate because the main story has actually been taken quite well".

She has since seldom been seen in films, making a brief foray to play the antagonist in Rajadhi Raja (2009), before appearing in the Telugu films, Atharintiki Daaredi (2013) and Aagadu (2014) in glamorous supporting roles.

Mumtaj quit acting in 2018 and has been an ardent practitioner of Islam, requesting the media to avoid sharing photos of her former self. She is also a preacher of the Islamic faith and a motivational speaker.