Byculla to Bangkok

by Hussain Zaidi

  With this act, Anil Parab alias Wangya added his name to the illustrious list of failed gunmen in the history of the Mumbai mafia. Shah was injured, but not fatally. Though two alert cops, Sub-inspector Abdur Rauf Shaikh and Constable Yash Mahadev reacted swiftly and pounced on Parab, he managed to wriggle out of their grasp and sprinted past the onlookers. The policemen chased him. To deter them, he fired at them and they fired back. The bullets hit Parab, slowing him down. In no time, he was overpowered and the gun was snatched from his hands.

  Parab was arrested and jailed, booked under charges of attempt to murder. After a few months of imprisonment, he was released on bail.

  Hansraj Shah, the man he had targeted, was from Kanjurmarg, a northeastern suburb of Mumbai. He had shown exemplary courage by becoming a witness against the reigning don of the area, Ashok Joshi, who was like an elder brother to Gawli. Joshi had killed Shah’s brother Nanji at the behest of Dawood Ibrahim and Shah had agreed to testify against Joshi. Dawood wanted to silence Shah, and he had asked Chhota Rajan to arrange for a shooter.

  Shah was provided security cover by the police and was guarded at all times. The only time he was vulnerable was when he was inside the court premises. Courts in Mumbai in those days had hardly any security cover. The Mumbai mafia had attempted two hits on court premises earlier, and had succeeded both times.

  On 6 September 1983, David Pardesi had shot dead Amirzada at the sessions court at the behest of Dawood. This was in retaliation for the killing of Dawood’s elder brother, Sabir Ibrahim Kaskar. Rajan Nair had organized the hit job for Dawood by providing him with the shooter.

  The manner in which Amirzada was killed had infuriated Alamzeb and the Pathan syndicate. They immediately got hold of Abdul Kunju to eliminate Rajan Nair inside the court itself. Within three weeks, on 24 September 1983, Kunju got a rickshaw driver, Chandrakant Safalika, to dress up as a customs officer and kill Nair in court. In both these cases, the victim was declared dead before reaching the hospital.

  Chhota Rajan was confident that the closed courtroom was a good spot and never had any reason to doubt that the attempt to kill Joshi would fail. But the inexperienced Parab not only bungled the job, he also caused several setbacks to the gang by giving away information to the police.

  Born in October 1964, Parab had not been interested in acquiring any formal education, dropping out after struggling till Class 7 at a municipal school. No one protested. Parab’s father, Ramchandra, was employed at Morarjee Mills, and had a brood of seven to feed.

  After the closure of Morarjee Mills, Parab shifted from the mill heartland of Lalbaug to Kanjurmarg in 1983. At this time, the Bhandup-Kanjurmarg-Vikhroli belt in the northeastern region was gangster Ashok Joshi’s turf at one end and Krishna Pillai’s on the other. Joshi was a local desperado who owed his allegiance to Rama Naik and Arun Gawli. It was still the early 1980s and Dawood Ibrahim’s gang had so far picked fights only with the Pathans.

  The other local gangs, several of them comprising Maharashtrian boys, were all linked to Dawood. Though Dawood was a Muslim, his sensibilities until that point were more Maharashtrian, or Konkani Muslim, as opposed to the Pathans, who followed north Indian Muslim traditions. His family was from scenic Mumka in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, and they spoke Marathi at home.

  Rama Naik, Babu Reshim, Ashok Joshi, Satish Raje, Rajan Nair and Chhota Rajan – who joined them later – were part of one gang, known as the Byculla Company. Within this company, Dawood was regarded as the top don in Dongri, Rama Naik was revered in Byculla, while Joshi dominated in Kanjurmarg. Joshi never trusted Dawood and remained wary of him till the end. Nevertheless, he did his bidding as they had some sort of an understanding.

  In any case, in Kanjurmarg and Bhandup, if anyone was interested in joining the Byculla Company, they paid fealty to Joshi. Parab was one such youth, who was inducted into the Dawood gang by Ashok Joshi.

  Barely 19, Parab had began enjoying the power that came from hobnobbing with gangsters and the fear that he managed to instil in common people. Even policemen kept their distance now, he realized, and ignored his petty crimes.

  But now, Parab faced mixed reactions. Upon his return to Kanjurmarg, some laughed at his miserable failure in the courtroom. Others, however, hailed him as a braveheart for firing at the police and spending months in jail. Humiliated, yet just a little chuffed, Parab wanted to earn back his prestige and grow in the underworld. He was desperate for hit jobs.

  At this time, Sunil Dattaram Sawant, alias Sautya, was a rising figure in the underworld. News of his daredevilry and recklessness had spread far and wide. He had been barely sixteen when he committed his first crime. It was not a crime committed for monetary gain; he had stabbed Bhau Marathe, the brother of a powerful Shiv Sena leader, in cold blood. The Sena had been spreading its wings at the time and had become an influential regional party. Bringing harm upon a member of such a party was reckless and foolhardy. But Sautya feared few things in life. He was built like an ox and stood tall at 5'8", with strong, broad shoulders. He had a deformity on the ring finger of his left hand, which the police duly noted as an identification mark.

  Sautya was born on 26 January 1965. His father, Dattaram Sawant, was a native of Karaarewadi in Sindhudurg, and a railway ticket checker in Mumbai. Sautya had passed his matriculation from the Chikitsak High School at Girgaum, Charni Road, in south Mumbai.

  From childhood, Sautya had been inclined towards crime. He formed a gang of Maharashtrian boys with criminal inclinations when he was in secondary school. Manoj Kulkarni, Vijay Thorat, Bachhi Apte and Santosh Lad were among the early members of his gang. They were well-built and strong and extorted money from liquor barons.

  It was in Girgaum that Sautya first encountered Bhau Marathe. Marathe mostly had the upper hand in their spats, given that his brother was associated with the Shiv Sena. This so incensed Sautya that he decided to eliminate him. He eventually stabbed Marathe to death on 11 February 1982.

  After the murder of Marathe, no one dared stand up against Sautya. Within two years of Marathe’s killing, the gang had managed to garner great clout in the Girgaum area of south Mumbai. Rama Naik was then the don in the area beyond Girgaum and V.P. Road, and was considered a mentor by many Maharashtrian gangsters; like Arun Gawli, Sautya too revered Naik.

  But someone else had his eye on him. Dawood always homed in on those who were exceptionally chaotic in their thoughts and actions. After inducting Chhota Rajan, whom he wanted to use more as a manager, he had begun looking for someone who didn’t have any qualms about taking on hit jobs.

  A daylight killing in Girgaum drew his attention to Sautya. A bootlegger named Satyavan Parab had refused to budge during Sautya’s extortion attempts and, enraged by the disrespect and humiliation, Sautya murdered the man right there – proclaiming his dominion in the vicinity. Dawood was drawn to Sautya’s aggression, and he wanted to bring him into his gang.

  In the northeastern suburbs of Mumbai, Rajan Nair was also wreaking havoc and he was immediately roped in by Dawood. Through him, Dawood made subtle overtures which Sautya reciprocated with reverence. But he felt closer to Amar Naik than to Dawood and he did not want to jump ship. Within Naik’s gang, Sautya’s stature was guaranteed and he was gaining significant clout.

  Sautya’s gang had no non-Maharashtrian boys, and he held the Marathi ethos close to his heart. So when Dawood sent him a message, he neither refused the offer nor accepted it; he couldn’t dismiss it outright, particularly as this was his chance to join a gang whose roots were similar to his.

  Dawood understood. He knew how to get Sautya on his side – he simply had to wait for the right opportunity. Sautya owed allegiance to Sharad Shetty alias Anna, and felt close to him; Dawood decided to use this connection. When Sautya was arrested for some petty crime, Anna got him out on bail. Later, he revealed that it was Dawood’s intervention that had facilitated Sautya’s bail. The young gangster became indebted to Dawood. Naik, the don he looked upon as his mentor, had not helped hi
m get bail, but Dawood had. He was willing to do anything for the don.

  Parab, who was the same age as Sautya, decided to team up with him. The partnership worked for both men, perhaps because they were from the same Konkan Marathi background. (Maharashtrians from the coastal belt of Maharashtra, the Konkan region, have a distinct language and food habits – different from those who live in the landlocked, mountainous north-west.) They got along splendidly.

  Dawood gave Sautya and Parab their first assignment. When two gangsters from the Pathan gang – Chhenu and Pappu, who owed fealty to Karim Lala – began acting smart, Dawood decided to eliminate them. The brief was clear: they had to be killed in their stronghold of Nagpada. Sautya and Parab accomplished the task, killing the duo with relative ease before disappearing on a bike.

  Meanwhile, the Byculla Company, like all major gangs, had become too big and unwieldy and was hindered by issues of hierarchy. Discontent was simmering within the company. But it was yet to explode into rebellion. Dawood, who was making trips to Dubai by then, had begun promoting the gang as the D-Company. He wanted to be the big boss, and most of the time, his cavalier attitude irked the others.

  Rama Naik, Ashok Joshi, Babu Reshim and Arun Gawli were not happy with Dawood’s one-upmanship. They wanted to run the company like the cabals in the Italian mafia, and wanted consultation and discussion before any major decisions were made. But the ambitious don would not brook any interference and never consulted them. He believed he was the founder of the gang, and it was his prerogative to call the shots. Naik and Gawli did not approve of the company being tied to one man’s identity, but they decided to remain quiet for a while. For the larger good and because the company was regarded as bigger than the individual, they continued being part of the syndicate, albeit reluctantly. One last straw, however, broke the camel’s back.

  In 1987, Rama Naik and Sharad Shetty became locked in a major dispute over some property in the western suburbs of Mumbai. The matter landed before Dawood for arbitration. Dawood ruled in favour of Sharad Shetty and Rama Naik could not accept the decision; he decided to part ways with the gang. The other Maharashtrian boys could not take the humiliation either and decided to secede.

  The Byculla Company was now split into several factions. The cracks were clearly visible and the divide was vertical but still not along communal lines.

  While Arun Gawli, Babu Reshim and Ashok Joshi aligned with Rama Naik and remained united as one gang, now called the BRA gang, Satish Raje, Sautya, Anil Parab and Chhota Rajan joined hands with Dawood. Thus a new grid of power was formed.

  TEN

  The Second Meeting

  Today is our second meeting with Ashwin Naik at the Maruti Infrastructure office. Ashwin manages his business through this company, which he has named after his father. Our last meeting was in a guarded atmosphere, with less trust, more scepticism on display. He is now willing to trust us. He seems more cooperative, relaxed and willing to allow us a little window into his life. And we are all ears.

  But he is in a hurry today. Not because he has any urgent business to attend to. He has plans to see another movie. We are still a little mystified at this wheelchair-bound ganglord wanting to watch every movie on the first day of its release and that too in a multiplex, where he is particularly vulnerable. We are sure he can afford to install a home theatre, but we decide to keep our counsel.

  The last time we were here, he was getting ready to watch Race 2. Now, Abhishek Kapoor’s film Kai Po Che is on the list. It is assumed that he will be guarded by ten to twelve men every time he visits a public place. Once again, he mentions Oh My God. He thinks it is one of the best movies to come out of the Bollywood stable.

  He also keeps talking about his favourite actor, Aamir Khan. He absolutely loved Three Idiots, an Aamir starrer. ‘Aamir Khan has fine sensibilities and this comes across in his acting,’ he says. He dismisses Shahrukh and Salman Khan as mere entertainers, not actors.

  Movies and cricket are high on Ashwin’s list. He says he is a big fan of Sachin Tendulkar but Vivian Richards is his all-time favourite cricketer. ‘There never will be another like Vivian Richards,’ he says fervently. He remembers most cricket matches in detail – like the unforgettable Natwest 2002 final when Mohammad Kaif and Yuvraj Singh wrote themselves into the history of Indian cricket and became household names. That is one match he can talk about for hours.

  We are dying to talk about his lady love, his wife of fourteen years and mother of his two grown-up children, Neeta Naik. But we are afraid of his reaction. After all, he was the key accused in her killing. We gingerly broach the subject of love, hoping for something. Ashwin’s usually inscrutable eyes light up.

  He talks of a time when there were many girls on the horizon. There was Lorraine, whom he once dated. He was with her when he felt drawn to another lady, who was painting at the beach. She wore a lot of jewellery and he had gone up to her and cautioned her: ‘It’s not safe to wear so much jewellery here, you might get robbed.’

  The lady’s name was Rita Panjabi. She was half-Indian and half Lebanese. She found Ashwin fascinating, as he did her. She sent him a ticket to London, and they tried hard to make the relationship work. However, they soon realized that they were worlds apart on a lot of issues. There were cultural differences too, and eventually he felt that it was better to let go. After thirty years, Ashwin’s eyes still gleam at the mention of Rita. The bereft heart is always willing to recall fond memories of love.

  Would he talk about Neeta with such love? We try using a backdoor approach. What are his political leanings? He is happy to tell us that he worships Bal Thackeray. ‘Bal Thackeray was the only messiah in a true sense for the Maharashtrians and the Shiv Sena is the only party concerned with the well-being of the Marathi-speaking people.’

  ‘Is that why you exhorted Neeta Naik to join the Shiv Sena?’ we ask. Ashwin does not reply. He refuses to elaborate and seems upset at the mention of Neeta. He isn’t willing to continue the conversation any more.

  He calls out to his buddies and asks them to prepare to leave for the movie. It’s strange. A man can be such a romantic at heart and yet be disconnected from the topic of the woman he loved so much. We realize we have to rely on other sources for the Neeta-Ashwin prem kahaani.

  ELEVEN

  Civil Engineer Turns Criminal

  The cars were moving smoothly on the Western Express Highway. Ashwin and Neeta were returning from a trip to Bangalore.

  Ashwin was seated with his cousins and friends in one car, while Neeta was in another car with her father-in-law, Maruti. Earlier, at the airport, the couple were beaming from ear to ear, as if they had made some momentous decision.

  It was Neeta Naik who first spotted the burly men at the Kherwadi junction. Kherwadi junction is one of the busiest intersections on the Western Express Highway, with Nirmal Nagar on one side and the Government Colony and Chetana College on the other. In the sixty seconds that it took for the light to turn from red to green, Neeta Naik spotted a few men getting off their bikes and out of their cars. They had pistols in their hands and they were moving quickly towards her husband’s car. Alarmed, she immediately got out of her car and began screaming for help.

  ‘Help! Helllllp! Arre koi bachao!’ Neeta shouted at the top of her voice, as she raced towards Ashwin’s car.

  The gunmen were startled to see her and an elderly man (her father-in-law) running on the highway. This was a contingency they had not planned for. The signal by then had turned green, and the cars had already begun moving. The gunmen had no time to lose so they began firing indiscriminately at the windscreen of Ashwin’s car. Ashwin reacted quickly and opened his door to duck behind the car.

  It was a chaotic scene at the signal: a desperate woman trying to save her husband and pleading with the occupants of every passing car. The cars sped past her, the drivers simply looking the other way as they did not want to get into any trouble.

  The Naiks’ two cars had halted right in the middle of the roa
d, disrupting the traffic. The shooters, certain from the damaged state of his car of Ashwin’s death, swiftly got into their own cars and onto their bikes and disappeared through the lanes that led to Kalanagar and Chetana College in Bandra East.

  The police, who were nearby in a wireless van, were alerted by the ruckus and rushed to the spot. Miraculously, Ashwin had not been hit at all. He had ducked at the right time – but the friend who had accompanied him from the airport had been injured.

  After the initial shock, Ashwin walked towards a sobbing Neeta, calmed her down and got her into the car. They then resumed their journey. Neeta was still trembling with fear and sobbing continuously.

  On their way back from Bangalore, they had been so happy. They had decided that they would leave Mumbai for good and settle down elsewhere. They were tired of being wedged between the police and the mafia. Every time Amar made a mistake, Ashwin was picked up by the police despite his being a qualified engineer with a clean track record. And when his brother scored over his rivals, Ashwin was a soft target for them to retaliate through.

  This particular attempt had been made by Chhota Rajan, who was with Dawood at the time. It changed the equation for the Naiks and amongst the Maharashtrian mafia for ever. Neeta started to feel deeply insecure about Ashwin’s safety and she began contemplating her options. Ashwin was fortunate to have come out unscathed this time, but would he always be so lucky?

  Neeta finally made up her mind and told Ashwin to join the gang, regardless Amar’s opinion. She realized Ashwin could never live a regular life and he needed the cocoon of the gang as a safeguard at all times.

  ‘I breathe Ashwin, I don’t need food and water. I only need oxygen and his fond memories to survive,’ she told me many years later at her refurbished flat in Chinchpokli.