Dongri to Dubai - Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia

  He tried to adjust his position to get a clear shot but all he could see were the heads of policemen. He had been given strict orders to shoot to kill. Pardesi was supposed to jump out of the first floor window into the waiting jeep, after shooting. Rajan, his driver, Balaram Venugopal, and Ali Antulay were waiting below the courthouse to ensure that he did not end up in the policemen’s hands.

  Pardesi’s mind was blank as he tried to take aim at Amirzada. The policemen in front of him moved and suddenly, he managed to focus on Amirzada’s forehead, and fired. There was a dull boom in the courtroom and Amirzada collapsed, in the middle of his cordon. Pandemonium erupted in the courtroom as people ran in all directions and the police tried to contain the situation. For a few moments there was utter chaos and Pardesi turned to run. However, Sub-inspector Ishaq Bagwan had caught sight of him. He whipped out his gun and fired. He took aim at Pardesi’s neck and got him. Pardesi was down—injured but not dead.

  Bagwan rushed him to the nearby JJ Hospital. Meanwhile, Rajan’s men waited long enough to ensure the target was dead and rushed off. They assumed that as Pardesi had been shot, he would die too. But Pardesi survived; his injuries were not fatal.

  Pardesi made no show of bravado. He was not a gangster. He just wanted his nightmare to end. At the first suggestion of SI Bagwan, he turned into a police witness. He gave testimony against Rajan and Dawood, implicating both of them in the murder of Amirzada. Subsequently, Bada Rajan and Dawood Ibrahim were arrested. For Rajan, this had become a death warrant, as being a much smaller fry than Dawood, he did not enjoy the kind of protection as Dawood did, and could be bumped off easily once out of jail. For Dawood, it meant that Bombay was no longer safe for him.

  Bagwan took Pardesi under his protection and helped him start life afresh. But once an enemy of Dawood, an enemy of Dawood forever. Dawood pursued him everywhere. Pardesi subsequently married and moved to Dubai, where he sold audio cassettes. But he was forced to flee from Dubai too, and returned to Bombay. Finally, after a few years, he was found dead under mysterious circumstances in a hotel in Bombay.

  The way Dawood pursued Pardesi until the end is an example of how vindictive he could be. Pardesi had served his purpose yet he hounded him because he had let Dawood’s name slip. Dawood never forgave or forgot even the smallest of betrayals.

  31

  Circle of Revenge

  The Pathan syndicate was wild. They could not have imagined that a rookie could just walk into a courtroom and kill Amirzada in such a brazen manner. At the face of it, they presumed Pardesi belonged to Dawood’s gang. But on the discovery that a small-time thug like Rajan Nair was behind the killing, they were more outraged than enraged.

  They had to take revenge and they had to kill Rajan Nair, as a response to the murder of their brother. Initially, Alamzeb himself wanted to pull the trigger. But Karim Lala convinced him that if he tried doing such a thing in the courtroom, he would not survive, as this time the cops would be more alert.

  For days, they schemed, but to no avail. Karim Lala was very fond of Amirzada; a Pathan baccha, a Pathan boy born in the same land as him. He could not jeopardise another clan member’s life now. He decided that the best way to avenge the killing would be without putting another Pathan’s life in danger. And the only way to go about this would be to hire an outsider.

  The Pathans did not have to work too hard to identify the right candidate. Soon they found the man for the job: Abdul Kunju. He had, of course, been an arch-enemy of Rajan Nair’s for a long time, as double incentive.

  A message was dispatched to Kunju, summoning him to come and meet the Pathans in a hotel at Nana Chowk. When Alamzeb approached Kunju, he was delighted. Kunju had always wanted to kill Rajan and had been waiting for just such an opportunity and backing. With gangsters of the stature of the Pathans offering to join hands with him in killing Rajan, he was getting a great bargain.

  Kunju was a brilliant planner. It was for this reason that he had managed to upstage his former mentor in many ways. He told Alamzeb, ‘Bhai, apun Rajan ko courtroom mein-ich marenge. Jaise usne aapke bhai to mara [Bhai, I will kill Rajan in the courtroom itself just the way he killed Amirzada].’ This was the only way the cycle of revenge could be completed.

  Kunju also pointed out there was no point in hiring a professional hitman, as whoever pulled the trigger was sure to be caught. The police could not afford to be caught napping a second time.

  Kunju was confident that the task of locating a triggerman would be quite easy; Rajan had many enemies. They just had to locate one of them. Abdul Kunju personally launched a manhunt for someone who could kill Rajan Nair in court. After a couple of days of intensive search in the Ghatkopar area, Kunju and his men found a rickshaw driver called Chandrashekhar Safalika.

  Safalika was a victim of Bada Rajan’s high-handedness and his atrocities. He hated paying the monthly hafta of 10 rupees to Rajan and his men. Moreover, one of Rajan’s men was constantly making indecent advances towards his younger sister. When Kunju’s men offered him 50,000 rupees supari to kill Rajan, Safalika realised he could kill two birds with one strike. Not only would he be able to take revenge against his enemy, he would also earn some money for his family. With 50,000 rupees he could buy two or may be even three rickshaws, or leave behind a decent sum for his family if he died or got caught.

  The plan was very cleverly hatched. Exactly twenty-four days after the Amirzada shootout, on 30 September 1983, one of the initial remand hearings for Rajan was taking place in the Esplanade Court in the Azad Maidan Police Station compound. This time the police were not taking any chances. There was heavy bandobast in and around the court. Anybody who entered the court was searched for weapons. The judge knew that Rajan Nair was going to be produced in the court that day though the police had not mentioned that in the roznama, the court register where daily proceedings are recorded. But Kunju also knew that Rajan would come. They had decided it had to be now or never.

  The moment Rajan stepped into the courtroom, flanked by cops, the tension was palpable. Everyone in the courtroom stiffened. Lawyers held back, trying not to stand too close to Rajan. The policemen had their hands on the trigger, ready for any action, even if it felt silly to expect another courtroom shootout. But you never knew what the Bombay mafia would pull off next.

  The tension had perhaps caught up with Rajan himself. He too seemed uneasy and did not look anything like his usual jovial self. Jumpy and constantly on edge, perhaps he was being haunted by that maxim: that those who live by a sword, die with a sword.

  That brief court date ended uneventfully. Nothing happened. It was a kind of anticlimax. No assassin strolled up, no one emptied the contents of a revolver into his chest. No hitman could get at this target even from a nearby building. Rajan heaved a huge sigh of relief. The policemen were relieved too, thinking that this time they would not get any flak from their superiors.

  The person no one noticed was a seaman moving around the courtroom premise, not having mustered enough courage to whip out his revolver and shoot. Yes, the naval officer was Chandrakant Safalika though the nameplate on his chest read S.S. Bilai. He kept walking around, looking for the right opportunity but nervousness and uncertainty kept getting to him. Rajan was a big don and all said and done, Safalika was an ordinary rickshaw driver. He had never imagined that he would be entrusted with the terrible opportunity of taking on Rajan Nair. The scene was later immortalised in Rahul Rawail’s Hindi potboiler, the Sunny Deol-starrer Arjun. The scene I speak of was a straight lift from real life. A hitman dressed as a naval officer moves around nervously on the courtroom premises, trying to get a shot at a gangster produced in court.

  Safalika, after a great deal of hesitation, finally decided it was do or die, egged on by the awareness of his sister’s honour.

  A small crowd passed by and lawyers watched with little interest as the police escorted Rajan Nair to the van. Suddenly
the naval officer disentangled himself from the crowd and walked briskly towards Rajan. The police officer thought the officer was coming to give him a message. Nobody took him seriously until the time he whipped out a gun. Rajan was astounded; he could not believe a naval officer could do this to him. Safalika shot him point blank range.

  Four bullets were shot at Rajan, who was wounded on his forehead, chest, neck, and face. He was bleeding profusely. The bullet also injured a constable who was with Rajan. For Rajan, it was too late to be rushed to the hospital. He slumped to the ground at once and died a few minutes later.

  Once Safalika finished shooting, he dropped the gun to his side. He did not know what to do next. The police party was too aghast to decide what to do; the scene was a frozen tableau for a few moments. Finally, they realised they had to arrest Safalika, who had made no attempt to escape.

  32

  Rise of Chhota Rajan

  The killing of Rajan Nair alias Bada Rajan marked the emergence of another Rajan—Rajendra Nikhalje alias Chhota Rajan. Chhota Rajan was a black marketeer at the Sahakar Cinema at Chembur. His father Sadashiv was a worker in Hoechst in Thane. Chhota Rajan has three brothers and two sisters, and the family is originally from Lonar village in Satara. After dropping out of school in Class 5, Rajan fell into bad company and joined a gang of boys led by Jagdish Sharma alias Gunga (meaning deaf).

  And in 1979, immediately after the Emergency when the police had launched a crackdown on black marketeers of cinema tickets, a group of policemen had also started a lathi charge at Sahakar Cinema, during which Chhota Rajan had snatched a constable’s lathi and attacked the police party. He had managed to seriously injure five cops and shot to infamous public attention soon after that.

  All the major gangs in northeast Bombay wanted Chhota Rajan to join their gang. Slowly, rising through the ranks, he had joined the Bada Rajan’s gang and with Kunju’s betrayal had grown into his trusted aide. He knew that Bada Rajan always harboured a grudge against Kunju for stealing his girlfriend and knew that Rajan Anna wanted to settle scores with Kunju, but had never gotten an opportunity.

  When he heard that Kunju had gotten Bada Rajan killed in the court, Chhota Rajan was livid. Kunju had underestimated the might of Rajan’s men. The first thing that Chhota Rajan’s men did in Ghatkopar was to enforce an impromptu bandh. In those days, parties like the Shiv Sena had not started organising bandhs and it was a concept almost pioneered by gangsters.

  Once the bandh became effective, they began to hunt for Kunju, who had sought Alamzeb out for refuge. However, Alamzeb shooed him away. ‘You should be able to protect yourself. Now get lost from here,’ he reportedly told him.

  So Kunju was running for his life and Chhota Rajan was chasing him like an apostle of death. Wherever Kunju went Chhota Rajan seemed to know where he was hiding. Kunju managed several times to escape just before the two of them came face-to-face. Chhota Rajan had taken charge of the gang by then and for him, finding Kunju and killing him had become a matter of prestige.

  Finally, exhausted by the pressure and absolutely fed-up of running, Kunju did the only sensible thing left. On 9 October 1983 Kunju went to the Crime Branch and surrendered. He felt that he would be much safer in jail than outside. But Kunju was not 100 per cent correct. Chhota Rajan had spent enough years with the mafia and the police to know how to bribe officials and get work done. He pulled every possible string and paid every official who would accept money in his quest to nail Kunju.

  Eventually, Kunju began to fear for his life even within the jail precincts. When Chhota Rajan heard that Kunju was supposed to be taken to Vikhroli court on 22 January 1984, he decided that this would be his best chance to ambush him. Kunju knew, of course, that Chhota Rajan was after him and that he might attack him.

  For the mafia, the real challenge is not only to get revenge, but also to replicate their enemy’s action while getting this revenge. Bada Rajan’s killing of Amirzada could only be avenged by the killing of Bada Rajan inside the court premises. If he had got bail and had been killed outside, it would not have been revenge in the absolute sense for the Pathans. Similarly, for Chhota Rajan, killing Abdul Kunju while he was in custody was the only way of getting revenge. If Kunju managed to get out, then Rajan’s vengeance would not be as effective. He wanted to kill Kunju on the court premises.

  Kunju was well aware of this age old law of mafia revenge. He knew that his best option to evade Chhota Rajan’s attack was to remain in judicial custody and out of the courts as long as he could. So on 22 January, while he was escorted to the court, Kunju bribed the constables who were to take him to the court and pleaded with them to allow him to use his own car rather than a police van. He promised them that he would not attempt escape. ‘I don’t want to die. If I escape, Chhota Rajan will kill me. I would rather stick with the police,’ he reasoned with the police party. He also tried to tell them that in a police van, he would be more exposed while he would be less conspicuous in an Ambassador.

  Kunju was wrong. After the hearing, as he was driven back in his car, the group noticed that the Ambassador was being followed by another car. Kunju could not believe his eyes; Chhota Rajan had been one step ahead of him. He was following the Ambassador instead of the police van. As Kunju was about to regain some control of the situation, his car stopped at a signal near Chembur. Just then the car pursuing him swerved alongside and its occupants started to fire at him indiscriminately.

  Kunju ducked, as did the policemen. The idea was for Chhota Rajan’s people to fire a hail of bullets and escape immediately without provoking the police party to fire back. So they opened a volley of bullets, and the moment the traffic began moving, they escaped. The firing party did not know that Kunju had managed to get only one bullet in his shoulder, and that one policeman had taken a hit too.

  Kunju had survived again. After this attempt on his life, however, Kunju became paranoid. He began seeing Chhota Rajan’s men everywhere. Policemen recall that even in jail he sometimes woke up covered in sweat and screaming with fear.

  For months, nothing happened. The police thought that perhaps Chhota Rajan had given up. But Kunju was still unable to relax. He knew that Chhota Rajan would not give up until his honour was vindicated. He would be waiting for the next opportunity to present itself.

  The Rajan Nair killing had been carried out in September 1983. But for months, Chhota Rajan had kept trailing Kunju, proving that the frenzy of wanting revenge never wanes. The next attempt on Kunju’s life was on 25 April 1984 when Kunju was being taken to JJ Hospital by a police party for treatment of his shoulder. He had been going to JJ Hospital regularly and the police never expected any danger from the nurses, doctors, or patients.

  Chhota Rajan’s charisma and courage came from the fact that he almost always managed to surprise policemen. As the police party escorted Kunju to the doctor’s cabin, a patient who was sitting outside the cabin on a bench stood up, threw off his plaster of Paris cast from his arm and took out a gun, letting loose a volley of bullets. Another patient was killed, but Kunju escaped with a wound on his shoulder. Kunju had managed to escape yet again, miraculously. But this move by Chhota Rajan had caught Dawood’s attention.

  Dawood liked Chhota Rajan’s exploits and the way he had doggedly chased Kunju for months. He had heard about the boy while dealing with Bada Rajan in the matter of the Amirzada killing. And when he saw Chhota Rajan’s persistence, his planning and execution, he thought that it would be worth working with the boy. In Dawood’s mind, nothing happened without reason and no one was involved with his operations without a plan or an agenda justifying their place in it. Dawood had something in mind for Chhota Rajan.

  Dawood invited Chhota Rajan to his gang headquarters in Musafirkhana and subsequently to join his gang. It is said that no mortal has ever refused the invitation of Dawood. Chhota Rajan was no different. And soon after he joined the Dawood gang, Chhota Rajan finally mana
ged to get Kunju killed.

  It was sometime in 1987, at a small maidan in Chembur. Kunju had not seen much of Chhota Rajan for a while, and was almost thinking that it was safe for him to venture out into the public again without fearing for his life every single second. Kunju and several of his men were playing cricket at the maidan, all of them dressed in white, just like professional cricketers of the time.

  As the game progressed, all the men’s minds were on the game, and nobody noticed some new people, wearing the same white uniforms, join the players. Before anyone could realise that something was about to happen, the newcomers pulled out knives, pistols, and choppers, and attacked Kunju. By the time Kunju’s men rushed over to their boss, Rajan’s men had literally slashed Kunju open and riddled him with bullets. All his men who rushed up were also attacked brutally, and died horrific deaths like Kunju.

  It was all over in under a minute. And just like that, before anyone could raise an alarm, the attackers calmly walked away. Chhota Rajan got his man eventually.

  33

  Enfant Terrible: Samad Khan

  October is considered the second summer in Bombay. The month marks the end of the monsoon and is the interim period before the beginning of winter. But these summer variations seemed to have no impact on the insatiable libido of Samad Khan the Pathan.

  This particular evening, Shilpa Zhaveri was exhausted spending an entire day struggling to organise a good meal for her man. But the moment Samad stepped into her flat, food was the last thing on his mind. He reached for her and groped her, growling, ‘First things first.’ There was no chivalry, no tenderness, and no caresses. As far as Shilpa could recall, his kisses were more like bites.