The two men from Uttar Pradesh worked out at Baashu Dada’s Teli Mohalla headquarters, which doubled up as a gym. Huge mirrors lined the walls of this room, while an assortment of pulleys, dumbbells, and barbells were strewn on the floor.
It was from this den that Baashu Dada surveyed his smuggling universe and lorded over Dongri, the toughest territory in the city. One of the top smugglers of his time, Baashu dealt in gold and silver.
The police steered clear of Baashu Dada, as he was the most powerful don in the area. In fact, the local policemen regularly sought his help in solving cases. Baashu’s contacts in the city helped them nab pickpockets, bicycle thieves, violent criminals, and underground casino operators.
Baashu Dada’s helpful gestures did not go unrewarded. When the customs department or the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence implicated him in a smuggling case, policemen from the Dongri Police Station or the Yellow Gate Police Station found themselves in a tricky situation.
To save face, they would ostensibly mount raids on Baashu Dada’s premises. The police jeep would park at the corner of the NU Kitab Ghar at the JJ Junction. An officer, accompanied by a lone constable, would get out of the jeep, take off his cap and walk towards Baashu’s evening baithak. The don would not budge an inch from his seat, barely acknowledging the policeman’s presence. And the officer would greet him humbly and sit on a chair, if he was offered one.
Sometimes, the don would treat these men in uniform to badam sherbet. At other times, he would ask them to leave, no questions asked. Even the policemen of Bombay, who had the reputation of being India’s toughest, were forced to comply—if not grovel—in front of Baashu. Once a starving slum dweller, Baashu Dada had scaled dizzying heights.
Baashu landed in Bombay in the post-Independence years of poverty and despair. A young boy barely in his teens, he spent days searching for food in the south Bombay areas of Null Bazaar, Khetwadi, and Grant Road. Although he made some money as a cycle mechanic and errand boy at a scrap shop, he went hungry more often than not. One day, in a desperate bid for survival, Baashu snatched a leather bag from a Marwari businessman outside Shalimar Talkies and ran for his life. When the businessman raised an alarm, a mob started chasing him. At the Null Bazaar junction, a police constable nabbed him and confiscated the bag, which was stuffed with wads of currency.
As punishment, Baashu was sent to the Dongri Remand Home, the city’s biggest penitentiary for juvenile offenders. At the age of 15, he had to work like a hardened convict, lifting heavy barrels of water and gunny bags. It was in the throes of such strenuous work that Baashu began to pay attention to the interesting ways his body was changing, his friend Shaikh Abdul Rahim alias Rahim Chacha recalls. The initial fancy he took to bodybuilding turned into an obsession. With his expanding pectorals and bulging biceps, he became a force to reckon with inside the remand home; the inmates and even the wardens became wary of his volatile temper and physical prowess.
Legend has it that Baashu once slapped a cook for serving him less food. The enraged cook retaliated by hitting him with an iron rod, which Baashu twisted out of shape with ease. The astonished eyewitnesses, who had never seen such a display of brute strength, grew increasingly deferential to Baashu.
The administration, which had initially sought to punish him for this act of intimidation, let it pass as the lad was only few months short of 18, the age of release from the remand home.
Once released, Baashu joined the ranks of unemployed youth in the city. But not for long. Before his release, he had chalked out a plan of action. For, inside the remand home he had met a couple of teenage criminals who showed him how to make a quick buck.
Swiftly, he assembled a band of equally daring boys who were itching to make some money. The newly founded gang waited outside the Bombay dock at Masjid Bunder and clambered atop trucks carrying imported fabrics and electronic items. By the time the truck reached the city, Baashu and his gang managed to steal enough goods to earn themselves several thousand rupees at Mohatta Market. These exploits earned the intrepid Baashu an early nickname: godi ka chuha (dock rat).
The profits he made off this scam were sufficient to afford Baashu a luxurious lifestyle. But soon enough, he got bored of this risky small- time business. He turned his eye to direct smuggling. In the very first consignment of Rolex and Rado watches he smuggled in, he managed a windfall profit. Within months, the young man made it to the top league, joining Haji Mastan and his fellow don Bakhiya. He began driving fancy cars and bought flats in plush Malabar Hill, in addition to several other properties in Bombay and a few in Hyderabad. Secretly, though, Baashu was quite disdainful of Mastan and Bakhiya. He was a self-made man, who saw to all the nitty-gritty himself, and consequently, never thought highly of anyone who would make others do all the dirty work for them.
One quality remained unchanged despite his meteoric rise: his obsession with bodybuilding. This extended to his collective use of force; unlike other smugglers like Haji Mastan, who had to hire muscle from Karim Lala or Varda, Baashu always used his own muscle and men to conduct his business.
Baashu, like most dons, hated the system and treated the police machinery with disdain—something no other don before or after him managed so effortlessly, perhaps. Among the members of his coterie, however, was the retired head constable, Ibrahim Kaskar, so revered by Karim Lala. Baashu was a master puppeteer who manipulated and used several retired and serving cops. Ibrahim was one of these, a former head constable. Under the guise of friendship, Baashu would often make use of Ibrahim and his knowledge of the system to get his smuggled goods cleared by customs. But despite all the contempt he displayed when it came to the police force, he showed deference towards Ibrahim bhai. Baashu genuinely liked the man for his honesty and integrity. He often told Ibrahim bhai, ‘Agar aap police mein na hote toh aap mere saath hote [if you weren’t with the police, you would work for me].’ And known for his bluntness, Ibrahim Bhai would retort, ‘God forbid, I’d never have to see a day like that’.
An offended Baashu decided he needed to crush Ibrahim Bhai’s pride. Nobody had the guts to snub him the way Ibrahim Bhai did.
Baashu found out that Ibrahim Bhai, for all his popularity and the respect accorded him by society, was close only to a handful of people. One of these friends was a small-time racketeer called Abdul Rahim, with whom Ibrahim had grown up. A short puny man, Rahim was used to selling off smuggled goods from Mastan or Baashu to big markets and in sales hubs like Mohatta Market and Manish Market, earning a commission on the sales.
Rahim was well-known in smuggling circles and Ibrahim Bhai often got him out of tricky situations. Rahim and Ibrahim Bhai were childhood friends and were known for being thicker than blood brothers. Bashu learnt that Rahim did not have a steady income. Rahim was the type who was flush if he had just handled a smuggling consignment and then went through a lean patch subsequently, once a lull hit.
Baashu summoned him and asked him to work for a fixed salary of 500 rupees as his manager. For Rahim, it was a princely sum and he lost no time in accepting the offer. But there was a rider—‘Baashubhai, dost bana kar rakhenge to dosti mein jaan de sakta hoon, lekin ghulami nahin karoonga [Baashu bhai, treat me like a friend and I’ll give up my life for you, but I won’t be your slave],’ Rahim told him.
Something about Rahim immediately endeared him to Baashu and they both began working together. Although Baashu had hired Rahim to get Ibrahim bhai on his payroll, he soon realised that Rahim himself was a versatile man. Rahim increased his profits manifold with his sharp business acumen. Soon Rahim became indispensable to Baashu and an integral part of his think-tank.
With changing circumstances, almost everyone forgot that Baashu wanted Ibrahim to pay obeisance to him. But destiny has an indelible memory.
8
The Star Called David
Ibrahim Kaskar’s family was originally from the village of Mumka in Ratnagiri
district in Maharashtra. Ibrahim’s father Hasan Kaskar owned a small hair cutting salon called the Naaz Hair Cutting Saloon at Char Null in Dongri. Ibrahim had three brothers, Ahmed, Mehmood, and Ismail. All of them were based in Khed village near Ratnagiri. Ibrahim alone had made his home in Bombay and a name for himself though the Kaskars were poor, the constable was well-known in the Dongri area. There were few head constables from the Muslim community, and in those times, head constables were considered more powerful than even the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP).
By then, Haji Mastan and Karim Lala were established and ruling the roost. However, one man who could always enter their darbar was Ibrahim Kaskar. This speaks volumes about his clout and the respect that he commanded in those circles. Even though he used to work for Mastan and earned remuneration for his services, they still looked upon him as their friend.
After Karim Lala’s example, everyone had begun to address the man fondly as Ibrahim Bhai. Whenever there was a social or family dispute in the area, whether between brothers regarding property or between couples or between two businessmen, Ibrahim bBhai was always summoned to play the role of mediator. Inevitably, these issues were resolved after his intervention. And aside from settling local disputes, the man was also ever-willing to help the poor. He was known to offer food, shelter, clothes, and even money to those who needed them, from orphans to destitutes to the unlucky. He would even borrow money from the dons to help out someone when he himself did not have the resources.
But the same Ibrahim Bhai who yielded such clout and exuded such authority in the area would rise to his feet with genuine reverence each time he saw anyone who claimed to be a Sayyed Muslim. Although there is no caste hierarchy in Islam, Sayyed Muslims are considered superior by pedigree as they are said to have descended from Prophet Mohammad. It was this deep reverence towards Sayyeds that presented opportunity to many unscrupulous people who wanted to take advantage of Ibrahim bhai’s religiosity.
Regarded as a resourceful cop in CID, Kaskar had, in a career spanning over two decades, built up a formidable reputation in the police. In the early sixties, Yusuf havildar, Adam havildar, and Ibrahim Kaskar formed a powerful group of constables in Dongri and used to make criminals quiver. Their methods of interrogation, using both psychological and physical torture, were so effective that the thugs used to say, ‘Yahan deewaren bhi bolti hai [even the walls will confess their crimes].’
Kaskar was a constable at several different police stations like Colaba, Mahim, Malabar Hill, as well as the traffic police HQ and retired around 1967 with his final posting at the Crime Branch. At the time, there was only one Crime Branch stationed in the commissioner’s headquarters: an elite squad made up of competent people. How ironic that the same room Ibrahim bhai was once saluted in later became the backdrop for discussions around the rise of the most dreaded gangster of the era — his very own son.
Kaskar lived with his wife Amina and a two-year-old son, Sabir in a small, nondescript 10 x 10 square feet house in Temkar Mohalla, a far- flung corner of south Bombay. It was here that his infamous second son was born on 26 December 1955.
Despite his already having been a father, the news of the birth of second son made Ibrahim ecstatic. Posted with the Malabar Hill traffic police at the time, he was manning the roads when he was given the good news: his wife Amina bi had delivered. He immediately sought leave from his superiors and rushed to his wife’s side. As he looked at the infant, he recollected that only a couple of months ago, Nirale Shah Baba, a seer whom they all revered deeply, had predicted that he would have six sons, and that his second born would be powerful, famous, and wealthy.
Ibrahim Kaskar was a very religious, pious man. When he looked at his son and thought of the power and wealth the seer had predicted, he could not conceive of any other name but Dawood. And thus Constable Ibrahim Kaskar’s second son came to be christened Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar.
The Holy Quran and the Old Testament of the Bible both hold references to Dawood (or David), as a highly venerable and powerful prophet of God. Dawood was also a king who ruled all the creations of God including animals and birds. According to Muslim folklore, Dawood was strong enough to bend an iron rod by a mere touch of his hand. The biblical Dawood also had a sweet voice—such that when he sang the Psalms, even birds would stop to listen to him, mesmerised by the sonorous voice.
When he named his son Dawood, Ibrahim hoped his son would reach the heights of glory, fame, and wealth predicted for him, and that the magical effect of this most apt of names would rub off on the boy.
Karim Lala, Pathan of Peshawar, was the first to receive news of Dawood’s birth outside the Kaskar clan. In fact, it is said that as Kaskar could not afford a walima (a feast organised on the birth of a son), Karim Lala hosted a lavish feast on behalf of his dear friend, Ibrahim Bhai.
Fortunately, no clairvoyant attended the feast, or else they might have warned Karim Lala that instead of celebrating the birth of his friend’s son so generously, he might do well to mourn the birth of his future nemesis.
9
The Baap of Dons
Ibrahim believed in the old world ideology wherefore children are regarded as the bounty of Allah. Thus Ibrahim’s family kept growing at a steady pace. After Dawood, Amina gave birth to five more sons: Anees, Noora, Iqbal, Mustaqeem, and Humayun. They also had four daughters Zaitun, Haseena, Farhana, and Mumtaz. Her eldest were Saeeda. It was quite a struggle to survive, trying to subsist and raise twelve children with a meagre salary. Stories from that time tell of how the Kaskar children starved most of the time. After they had their morning meal, which comprised tea and a piece of bread (known as brun pav), the next meal was dinner late at night.
Most of the time, the family did not have anything to eat through the day. But in spite of the abject conditions they lived in, Ibrahim wanted his children to have a good education. He got Dawood enrolled in Ahmed Sailor High School, a prominent English-medium school at Nagpada, while his brothers were sent to municipality schools and sisters to Urdu-medium schools. Dawood’s father also ensured that his second son, intended for great things, was involved in extracurricular activities. He enrolled him in the RSP (Road Safety Patrol) team where he was given traffic training. Until the sixth grade, things went smoothly and Dawood did not play hooky.
But one day, Ibrahim and a few of his colleagues lost their jobs. It was never clear as to what exactly precipitated the crisis, but it was widely suspected the blow had been dealt because the policemen had not cracked a particularly high-profile murder case in 1966. Subsequently placed under suspension with his colleagues, Ibrahim could not believe his fate. The family was virtually on the brink of starvation.
Education now seemed a distant dream. Perhaps life would have taken a different turn for Dawood if he could have continued his education. But the family’s deteriorating financial circumstances forced him to drop out. Dawood was thus 10 years old when he bid farewell to formal education.
One man who was deeply disturbed by this development was Ibrahim Kaskar’s senior, ACP Dastagir Burhan Malgi. He insisted Dawood should continue his education at any cost, but Ibrahim Kaskar had no choice. From the summer of 1966, Dawood was one happy boy. He did not have to go to school, study, or complete his homework. He did not have to undergo the RSP training his father had put him through. And most importantly, he had all the free time in the world to do what he wanted—hang out in the area with other boys his age.
The boy started spending time with the street urchins in the Dongri and JJ area, much to the chagrin of his parents. At other times, he was found in the huge sprawling precincts of the JJ Hospital where he played cricket. He loved the game, patronising it even when he was on the run from the law, much later. Another favourite hangout was the JJ Square, where he played with other Muslim boys.
In the meanwhile, Ibrahim was busy with a new kind of work; he had begun doing various odd jobs to feed his family.
He was forced to run certain errands for Baashu Dada, even—petty jobs like running around with files to the clerks of the customs department and Bombay Port Trust officials. But he remained honest and despite temptations and enticement from friends like Rahim, he did not succumb to the temptations of a life of crime. He could not, however, keep a check on his sons, especially Sabir and Dawood.
Soon, Dawood’s family had to give up their house in Temkar Mohalla and shift to Musafirkhana, Pakhmodia Street, a stone’s throw away (at the time, called Bohri Mohalla). The Kaskars had barely shifted when Dawood made his presence felt in the area as the local goon. The Bohra community bore the brunt of the activities of the budding gang of thugs. Musafirkhana became the unofficial headquarters for the budding Dawood gang.
Despite all the religious teachings and education imparted by his parents, Dawood was drawn to crime and power and he was hungry to earn lots of money. Even before his teens, he had begun to indulge in street crime like petty theft, chain snatching, beating up people, pickpocketing, and extorting money from shopkeepers.
Dawood was just 14 years old when he committed his first crime. He snatched money from a man who was counting cash on the road and ran away with it. The victim managed to trace Ibrahim and complained to him. A furious Ibrahim got hold of his son and gave him a proper thrashing. This kept Dawood and his minions under check for a few days, but not for long. The boy soon returned to his wayward behaviour.
Dawood’s menace, clout, and propensity to cause mischief were soon common knowledge in the area. Whenever his father heard of his crimes, he was doubly embarrassed and enraged; both as a cop and as a father. However Ibrahim, who was transferred to the Crime Branch, was swarmed with work in his new posting and did not have the time to constantly discipline and watch over his troublemaker son. When he was not working, he was caught up in endless rounds of community work. But he never failed to haul up Dawood when he heard of his misdeeds, losing count of the number of times he had beaten the boy black and blue.