Byculla to Bangkok

by Hussain Zaidi

  But they had to react to the killings or be decimated altogether. Finally, Gawli and his boys decided to retaliate. They would kill a family member who was close to Dawood, whose killing would leave the Dawood gang reeling forever. The gang had decided to make it personal the moment Pappa Gawli died, and therefore looked for a crucial member of the D-Company who was also close to Dawood’s family. They found the perfect target in Ibrahim Parkar.

  Parkar was married to Dawood’s sister Hasina. He was a junior film artiste, and also owned the Qadri Hotel in Arab Gully, Nagpada. On 26 July 1992, he was at the cash register, going over the accounts. He stepped out late in the afternoon, accompanied by his driver Salim Patel. It was time.

  Four men hurriedly approached him, drawing out guns from under their shirts, and fired at Parkar and Patel before running away. Parkar died en route to St George Hospital.

  It had taken almost two years for Arun Gawli to retaliate, but he eventually managed a strike. It was now time for Dawood and his gang to mourn. A pall of gloom descended on that long trail from Dongri to Dubai.

  Parkar’s death brought a halt to the perpetual violence, but not for long.

  FIFTEEN

  Raavan

  Ajit Naik, the eldest of the Naik siblings, who had remained a vegetable vendor and never had anything to do with crime, joined the Shiv Sena one day and began to closely work with Ramesh More, an MLA. Naik maintained a close rapport with More and Duttaji Salve of the Bharatiya Kamgar Sena. These contacts drew the Naik family closer to the Shiv Sena and also improved their prospects of getting a foothold in state politics.

  The increasing proximity to the Sena was proving beneficial to Amar Naik in many ways, though he was uncertain about exactly how he could capitalize on the connection. Meanwhile, he himself had joined hands with Lalu Mahadev and Krishna Pillai. Both Mahadev and Pillai were men with substantial clout and manpower. Since they were not connected to Dawood or Arun Gawli, the alliance was beneficial for all of them. Additionally, Pillai had a stronghold in the Vikhroli area, which ensured that Amar would have a say even in the northeastern suburbs of Mumbai.

  But when Dawood decided to wipe out his rivals, he targeted Mahadev and Pillai. Sautya killed Mahadev in a five-star hotel in the western suburbs, while Pillai was gunned down by Subhash Makadwala.

  Pillai had a reclusive son, Kumar Pillai, who was not associated with gangland activities. But when he witnessed his father’s death, he swore revenge. He vowed that he would not shave his head or don footwear until he had killed his father’s killers. He subsequently joined Amar Naik, whose resources, he believed, would be helpful in tracking down his father’s killers. A well-educated man, he managed to develop a good rapport with Ashwin Naik too. It is alleged that it was Kumar Pillai who first connected them to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) and helped Amar procure the latest weapons from them.

  After the loss of Mahadev and Krishna Pillai, Amar forged a friendship with Dashrath Rahane from Kranti Nagar in Girgaum. He needed replacements. Rahane reigned supreme in the steel market on V.P. Road in Girgaum and he often had skirmishes with Sautya, who was already displaying his clout in this area. Both Rahane and Sautya wanted the lion’s share of the steel market and there was no arrangement that could be arrived at peacefully as they were on inimical terms with each other. Rahane’s growing clout in Girgaum was irksome to Sautya and he decided to bump him off.

  Avdhoot Bonde was Sautya’s chosen man for the execution. Bonde, after careful planning, killed Rahane near Ganesh Talkies in Lalbaug on 19 October 1990. Rahane and his friend Surendra Nair had just emerged from a bar when the hit team that was lying in wait for him also came out. Rahane and Nair were too drunk to react or even think of defending themselves. A burst of fire from two guns ensured that both were killed on the spot.

  This could have affected Amar Naik, as Rahane was a close aide, but his financial stability kept him strong.

  Amar was twenty-nine years old at this time, and his parents were pressurizing him to settle down. Amar too was eager to get married. On 1 December 1992, he tied the knot with Anjali Aru, a graduate from Khalsa College and the daughter of Shriram Aru, a medical practitioner from Chunabhatti. Within a few years of his marriage, Amar gifted Anjali a white Maruti 1000.

  Ashwin too gifted his wife Neeta a similar car. Both the cars were registered in Gujarat with similar serial numbers. (The registration number of Anjali’s car was GJ-15-T-7732 while Neeta’s car number was GJ-15-T-7766.)

  Soon after, Amar’s criminal record exploded. There were more than 26 cases registered against his name for various crimes. He was also detained under the National Security Act in 1986, though he was later released by the high court.

  Amar’s innovations in the world of crime were phenomenal. He appointed regional commanders for control of each area to ensure efficient functioning. Arun Jagtap was appointed for south Mumbai while Suresh reigned in Tardeo. Similarly, Appa Patil, Usman Matwankar and Kumar Pillai looked after Byculla, Mahim and Vikhroli respectively. After this change in set-up, Naik had more than 20 regional commanders all over Mumbai. Their job was to collect money and funnel the funds to him.

  Amar had five passports registered under different names with which he travelled across the world: Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, San Francisco, New Orleans, Detroit, Washington DC, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Amsterdam, Brussels, Zurich, Stanford and many other places. (According to police dossiers, he had one passport in the name of Prabhu Krishna Shinde of Chowpatty. The second was in the name of P. Shinde from Osmanabad. The third was in the name of P. Shinde, but with a different number. The fourth was in the name of Jaywant Hanumant Rao Paygude, a resident of Pune. And the fifth was in the name of Ajay Bafna, a resident of Punjabi Bagh, New Delhi.) He travelled abroad from Mumbai and Delhi and used to book his tickets and transact business under three different identities.

  Amar amalgamated the business of property development and illegal hawala racketeering efficiently. This earned him a lot of businessman friends as the money transferred from hawala racketeering was funnelled into property development, while the money earned from property development in India was easily stashed away in foreign lands with the help of hawala controllers. Both the businesses flourished in tandem and Amar churned out maximum profits by providing the necessary logistics for operations.

  Amar quickly started buying property in the Dadar and Parel areas. He also had a significant property portfolio in his name in Kothrud, Pune. But the man was so clever that the police were never able to put together a complete list of his properties.

  The police also came across several foreign remittances in the name of Neeta Naik, which they suspected had roots in Naik’s drugs business. They found out that Anjali Naik had received $60,000 (Rs 15 lakh at the time) between January 1991 and January 1992. However, she had declared this to the income-tax authorities under the remittance in foreign exchange immunities scheme of 1991. Amar’s many foreign trips, of course, gave the cops a hint about his friendship with influential drug cartels across the world.

  The first time the police heard about his drug trafficking was on account of Shirbad Haji Khan, who was doing time in Arthur Road jail for violating the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS). It turned out that Khan’s release had been organized by Naik, with the help of the high court staff and one of the public prosecutors.

  Among other things, the cops discovered his fascination for sophisticated firearms. He owned an Austrian .9mm Glock, which is the standard personal weapon of Special Protection Group (SPG) personnel. The police had recovered a huge cache of arms including .9mm pistols, as well as several Israeli made .9mm UZI pistols, .9mm automatic carbines made in Germany, revolvers and nearly 500 rounds of cartridges from the house of Zarir Dorab Nalla Sheth, at Forjet Street in Fort.

  Behroj Kaikashru Farshit, a close associate of Amar Naik, had given weapons to Zarir Dorab for safekeeping. Amar Naik had a lot of Parsi supporters, which was something none of the
gangs had been able to garner earlier. Apart from Dorab and Kaikashru, he also had a gang member called Rusi Sevak Asli, who used to procure weapons for the gang. Investigations have revealed that the gang used to smuggle firearms from Pakistan through Chand Bhai of Shakipur Mina Bazar, which is 35 km away from Kanpur. The other supplier was Jehangir Patel, an arms dealer in Ahmedabad. Amar’s alliance with Patel was seen as a move towards an alliance with the Pathan gang. He then struck up a friendship with Abdul Latif and Nari Khan, who later helped form an alliance with the Pathan mafia. Be it with the businessmen in the Parsi community, the Walji Palji brothers, Nari Khan or the Pathan mafia, the police were never able to work out just how Amar went about setting up such efficient alliances.

  It is, however, widely believed that his alliance with the Pathan mafia and Nari Khan proved to be his downfall.

  Abdul Latif was a known Dawood Ibrahim loyalist and had quite a hold in Ahmedabad. That was how the crime branch and the Mumbai police realized that Amar Naik was now working in close connection with Dawood Ibrahim. The kind of sophisticated weaponry his gang possessed could have come from two sources, they suspected. One could be the Pathan mafia, which smuggled in weapons across the border from Afghanistan, and the other was rumoured to be the LTTE. Kumar Pillai, Ashwin’s associate, owned a hotel named Peninsula in Chennai, and this was the basis for speculations that he had connections with the LTTE.

  There was more to Amar’s connections and influence though. Even as he was busy maintaining his clout and connections in the higher circles of the underworld, he remained rooted. The police were flummoxed to see that he had numerous sympathizers in the lower ranks of the Mumbai police. Shrikant Dattaram Lad of the local arms squad was caught for being a messenger for the Naik gang. Another cop, A. Kadam of the Khar police station, was found tipping off the gang about police campaigns against them. During raids on Naik, the police found a diary that belonged to him. It contained the names and numbers of many police officers, including IPS officers, as well as politicians and builders. The diary revealed Naik’s close relationship with the Shiv Sena and showed his growing clout. The police felt they would have to clip Naik’s wings immediately, before he got out of control.

  What baffled them was Naik’s elusiveness. While Arun Gawli could easily be arrested and Dawood’s men could not dodge them for long – most of the gangsters landed in the police net sooner or later – Naik invariably managed to give cops the slip.

  Unlike other gang leaders, Amar had no confidantes. He was a loner who trusted no one; he had no companions, no drinking partner, and always showed up without prior intimation. There was no way for the cops to spread a dragnet for him or plant a mole in his gang.

  Amar used a bike, always wore a helmet, never drew attention to himself and melted into the crowd. From the way he dressed and the manner in which he conducted himself, it was difficult for anyone to suspect he was an outlaw. He appeared to be a businessman or a professional most of the time.

  He was also good at disguises and could change his appearance like a chameleon. It was this trait, besides other facets of his personality, that earned him the sobriquet Raavan, after the arch-villain in the Ramayana, who was also a master of disguises.

  Amar began to like his new title – he even began using the word Raavan as a code. Once, when he was dared by someone to face a cop and then escape, Amar bet heavily on his own ability to do so. He went to N.M. Joshi Marg and waited for an officer to emerge from the police station. When the cop came out and went to a nearby tea shop for a smoke, Amar went over and stood close to him.

  ‘Saaheb, namaskar,’ he said.

  The cop looked at him, trying hard to place the man facing him.

  ‘Namaskar, I don’t recognize you, you are…’

  ‘I am quite a famous person, saaheb… my name is Raavan,’ Amar said, looking straight into the eyes of the officer.

  ‘Raavan…’ the officer repeated slowly, trying to remember where he had heard the name last.

  Suddenly, the penny dropped and he looked up at the man in front of him.

  Amar immediately pulled down his helmet, revved up his bike and zoomed off. He had won the bet and left the cops flustered.

  The timid vegetable vendor of a few years ago had come a long way. Now, he could not only hold a cop’s gaze, he could challenge him and vanish right in front of his eyes.

  Amar Naik had become a menace and the police had to bring him to book. They could not allow him to mock them so blatantly.

  The manhunt accelerated and more teams were pressed into service. The world began to get smaller and smaller for Amar.

  SIXTEEN

  Mumbai’s Mickey and Mallory

  What draws a man to a woman is the biggest mystery in the universe. Like Helen of Troy, many women have driven men insane with their beauty. But in the underworld, as elsewhere, women have been known to be a driving force for their men and their actions.

  Gawli went on to become top don only after he married Zubeida Mujavar, who converted to Hinduism and became famous as Asha Gawli or Mummy. Asha’s moral support made Gawli strong enough to face the Mumbai police, the ruling Shiv Sena government and his arch-enemy, Dawood Ibrahim.

  It was Neeta Naik who exhorted her husband Ashwin to join his brother’s gang, something both Amar and Ashwin had been dead against for years. And gangster Sautya’s cruelty peaked after his association with Unita.

  Sunil Sawant alias Sautya, already a dreaded hitman, scaled new heights of ferocity after he began philandering. His lust for women and thirst for bloodshed always spiralled out of control. People around him knew that most of Sautya’s actions were driven by envy and greed. But his lust for women overpowered all other emotions, including ties of friendship, with shocking results.

  Pappi Shirsekar, Sautya’s best friend, had been arrested for murder and thrown in jail. Shirsekar’s wife Unita Prajapati started coordinating with Sautya on legal matters and for financial help.

  Sautya, who had never met her before, was now inexorably drawn to her. Subhash Singh Thakur did not like Sautya lusting after Unita – not only was she a married woman, she was Sautya’s friend’s wife. Thakur belonged to a family that attached a great deal of importance to maryada, which means dignity, decorum and by extension, loyalty. Soon, he and Sautya began to have arguments over Unita.

  It was the nineties and Sunil Sawant and Subhash Singh Thakur had become Dawood’s most ruthless killing machines. They complemented each other in every way and the opposition had no answer to this killer duo. By temperament, they were very different from each other. While Sautya could not live without his drink, Thakur was an ardent devotee of Shiva. Sautya’s strength came from gallons of alcohol; Thakur relied on his faith.

  Sautya realized that he could not have an illicit liaison with Unita as his friend would not allow it, and also that it could foment rebellion in the ranks of his gang. He devised a solution that only the most heartless of criminals could have come up with.

  First, Sautya cleverly plotted Shirsekar’s release from jail. He hired top-notch lawyers, bought over some eyewitnesses and worked hard on his release. When the case against him began to crumble, Shirsekar was given bail by the court in no time. He and his wife Unita were both extremely grateful and beholden to Sautya, and began singing paeans to his magnanimity.

  Sauyta, however, had other designs, not known even to his closest friends. He sent his trusted aides to take Shirsekar out for a drinking session, rendering him vulnerable and totally off guard. While they were returning from their drinking session, one of Sautya’s aides took advantage of the darkness to empty a gun into him before fleeing the place. Even Shirsekar’s drinking partners were clueless about the assailant’s identity and the killing was blamed on Gawli and other rivals of Sautya.

  Once again, Sautya stepped in like a benevolent angel. He pretended to console Unita, ensured that Shirsekar had a decent funeral and remained helpful and compassionate throughout her ordeal. Then two things happened to
Unita, transforming her into a different human being.

  Even before the embers of her husband’s funeral pyre had become ashes, she fell in love with her benefactor and agreed to marry him. Someone tried to warn Unita that Sautya was behind the killing of her husband, but she was beyond reasoning. And no one could tell if she had always secretly harboured a desire to become his wife.

  Unita Prajapati was no ordinary woman. Subsequent events proved that her transformation was complete. She had turned from the hapless wife of a gangster to an all-powerful moll. She began to share Sautya’s bloodlust. In fact, the Mumbai crime branch stumbled on to several statements by eyewitnesses which mentioned that Unita was present with Sautya at the scene of the crime. This was baffling. Why would a wanted gangster carry unnecessary baggage with him, which could slow him down and make him susceptible to arrest if the police chased him?

  Unita also accompanied Sautya on his long road trips from Delhi to Kathmandu. Sautya never spoke of the nature of his relationship with Unita, but Subhash Singh later revealed, in his statements to the police, that Sautya considered himself incomplete without her. So, whenever Sautya, Prasad Khade and Thakur travelled in a car to far-off places like Gonda and New Delhi, Sautya insisted that Unita travel with them. A lawyer, on condition of anonymity, told me that Unita had acquired a taste for blood. So much so that she not only violated one of the cardinal principles of the underworld – no lingering after fingering – she even forced Sautya to break the rule.

  A sharpshooter is supposed to scoot as soon as he has pumped bullets into his victim. But Unita loved to remain at the scene, watching life ooze out of the dying man, until he had breathed his last. The couple lingered at the spot, sometimes in the open, if they were not at immediate risk of discovery. At other times, they preferred to remain behind the dark tinted glasses of their getaway vehicle. No one before them had stayed long enough to see their victim finally succumb to his injuries. They were the Mickey and Mallory of Natural Born Killers, Oliver Stone’s crime-action film about two victims of traumatic childhoods who become lovers and mass murderers.