Byculla to Bangkok

by Hussain Zaidi

  The gunmen could not believe that Sautya would stoop to such cowardice. They pumped two bullets into Shankar and turned and ran after Sautya. One of them got back into their car and the other two chased him on foot.

  For all the families of Sautya’s victims, who had been killed in cold blood, Sautya’s killing in a similar fashion on Naif Road would have been cathartic. A heavy-set, bleeding Sautya struggled to run on the pavement alongside a busy Dubai road, while a car and two short men chased him unhurriedly.

  The debilitating Dubai heat, loss of blood and physical exhaustion slowed Sautya down. He tried to lean on a pole for support. When his pursuers caught up with him, Sautya saw them and cursed loudly, knowing there was no escape. He challenged them to a duel. But Sautya’s killer, later identified as Guru Anchan alias Pandya, just stood there and pumped more bullets into him. Sautya held on to the pole, not letting go. Pandya then walked up behind him, whipped out a knife and slit Sautya’s throat, getting the jugular. Sautya crashed onto the pavement, and lay in a pool of his own blood. The ambitious gangster was done for, his dreams ended in his dream land.

  A few minutes had passed since the first shot was fired at Sautya, and the Shurta, or Dubai police, had been alerted.When the assailants saw the police van, they tried to run.Two of them managed to get into their car and escape, while Pandya was immediately disarmed and arrested. The duo in the car, identified as Shyam Sunder and Babu, were arrested after a chase.

  Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan al Tameem, the police chief of Shurta for more than a decade, was furious at the way the Indians had perpetrated the killing – in the middle of the day, on a busy road full of people, and in such a gruesome manner.Tameem put his best man, Shaikh Abdul Jaleel, who was in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), on the job.

  Subsequent developments baffled the entire Dawood gang and kept everyone confused for a long time.

  Pandya told Jaleel during the investigations that they had killed Sautya at the behest of two Indian businessmen, Sharad Shetty and Anil Parab. He also told the police that Parab was the one who had supplied them with two revolvers, and that he had two more guns in his possession. The CID sprang into action and immediately arrested Shetty from the lobby of his hotel and Parab from his showroom.

  Dawood was taken by surprise. He could not believe that two of his trusted aides were capable of plotting the killing of Sautya, who had been close friends with both of them.

  Dawood was in Karachi, but he managed to place a call to Sharad in the CID lock-up, demanding an explanation from him. Sharad, who had by now figured out the conspiracy, explained it to Dawood. He convinced Dawood that Sautya’s killing was the handiwork of Chhota Rajan, who had managed to execute the killing through a mole in the D-Company.Without a mole, it would have been difficult for first-time visitors to Dubai to smuggle in weapons and track down Sautya’s whereabouts.

  Dawood believed what Sharad told him and ensured that he was released the same day, but he did not show the same generosity to Parab. He remained suspicious of Parab, who had his roots in the Tilak Nagar gang and had been hired by Rajan. Also, Rajan had loaned Parab 50,000 Arab Emirates Dirham (AED) to start his business in Dubai. Parab fit the role of a mole, and to pay for this, he ended up spending three months in the Dubai jail.

  Parab kept pleading his case with Dawood; he knew Dawood’s clout with the Dubai government. Dawood ignored all his messages. Finally, the CID released Parab for lack of any evidence against him.

  It emerged during the interrogation of Pandya that Rajan had not told the killers about Sautya’s background. They had been told that he was to be killed because he was a Pakistani agent working against India. They had also been told that after the killing, they had to proceed towards Dubai Creek in Bur Dubai, barely ten minutes from Deira, where an abra, a wooden boat used as a water taxi on the creek, would be waiting for them. Dubai relies on old-fashioned water boats which regularly cart goods to neighbouring countries, including Iran and Israel. Even today, these abras are used by the smuggling cartel to ferry goods to Iran. They make a huge profit as business is brisk, especially with the US imposing stiff economic sanctions against Iran.

  The killers were told that the abra would eventually drop them to the shores of Gujarat. The journey would take a few days. Rajan assured them that he would talk to his contacts in the smuggling ring to facilitate their escape. Plan B was that if they got arrested, they should name Parab and Shetty, who were Rajan’s friends in Dubai. Both of them had agreed to help get bail for the shooters and get them released, the trio was told. These apparently sound arrangements emboldened the men and made them reckless, which is why they showed no hurry in finishing the job and running away from the scene. They had pursued Sautya patiently and even after shooting him, took their time slaughtering him in broad daylight.

  Thus, by 5 August 1995, the Indian mafia wars had reached Dubai. Violence and bloodshed are bad for business, and Sheikh Mohammed was keen to attract business to the city. He did not want Dubai to be spoken of like Karachi or Mumbai. Tameem promised him that he would not allow anyone to commit any act that could disrupt the peace and security of the tightly controlled Arab kingdom.

  In the course of investigations, the CID realized that the stories they had been told were pure fiction. Rajan had spun the yarn to persuade the shooters to take up the assignment. There was no abra waiting on the shores of Dubai, and Parab and Shetty had no hand in the conspiracy.

  Tameem ensured that the case was fast-tracked and he issued a stern warning to Indian gangs in Dubai. The three shooters were awarded the death sentence. It came as a huge shock to them and their families that they received no help from Rajan while they languished in the Dubai prison. As a last-ditch effort, the trio converted to Islam and moved a mercy petition with the Dubai government. But Tameem ensured that no leniency was shown to them.

  The police chief also ensured that an Interpol warrant was issued against Rajan, as the mastermind of the killing. Rajan, who had spent almost a decade in Dubai and had been instrumental in scores of killings in India, had never had a red alert Interpol warrant issued against him. It put paid to his plans of mobility.

  Annoyed yet triumphant, Rajan sought solace in the fact that he had managed to inflict major damage upon Dawood’s gang, killing one of his top men in his own lair. But this was only the beginning. The odyssey of death had just begun, across the seas.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Of Gangsters, Guns and Ganpati

  Criminals are usually devout men, almost obsessively religious. The general feeling is that the whole world is gunning for them; only God understands them. The Mumbai underworld is replete with stories about gangsters’ religiosity and their unwavering faith.

  Varadarajan Mudaliar was the first don to unabashedly and publicly exhibit his devotion. He fed 1,000 devotees every year at an annual urs (celebration) at the Bismillah Shah Baba dargah at VT station. The lighting of his Ganesh Pandal at Matunga station was something the entire city came to gawk at, year after year. Initially, it started out as a small pandal outside Matunga station, but with the growth in his stature and influence, the pandal became bigger, swallowing a large chunk of public space outside the station. Crowds thronged to see the lighting at the pandal and like the Lalbagcha Raja, which is now one of the city’s most visited pandals, it was Varadarajan’s Ganesha that was the number one must-visit site for devotees every year.

  Film stars often came to the pandal, and so did other celebrities. Jaya Bachchan used to frequent it when Amitabh Bachchan was battling for his life at the Breach Candy Hospital in 1982.

  When the police decided to cut him down to size and diminish Varadarajan’s powers, they asked him to reduce the size of the massive pandal. Eventually, it was reduced to 100 sq. ft. By then the Ganesh pandal had become a symbol of Varadarajan’s diminishing clout. He felt humiliated and relocated to Chennai, where he died of a heart attack soon after.

  Like Varadarajan, Gawli too is an ard
ent devotee of Durga and spends lavishly during Navratri every year. For as long as he was friends with the Shiv Sena, he displayed photographs of Bal Thackeray and his wife Meena Thackeray at his Durga pandal. The photographs were promptly removed after he declared war against the Sena.

  Once again, the police reciprocated by restricting the size of the pandal and ensuring that music was not allowed to play beyond the 10 p.m. deadline.

  When Chhota Rajan joined hands with Dawood and made his fortune, the first thing he did was conduct a puja at the Ganesha festival in Tilak Nagar in 1987. Soon after, he had to escape to Dubai. But he ensured that his boys erected a sprawling pandal on the Tilak Nagar grounds every year, and that the celebrations were on a grand scale.

  Within a few years, the grandeur of the celebrations became the talk of the town. Rajan’s people started modelling their Ganpati pandals on various famous edifices: the Red Fort, the Mysore Palace, the Ajanta-Ellora caves, Disneyland even. In 2013, they showcased Film Nagari. Over a period of time, they increased their budget, and now they spend millions of rupees as it has become a matter of prestige for Chhota Rajan.

  The organizers pretend that they get the vargani (donation) from the residents of Tilak Nagar. But everyone knows that it is Rajan’s Ganpati and that he has never compromised on the scale and grandeur of the celebrations at his pandal.

  In the early nineties, the Tilak Nagar pandal, known as the Sahyadri Krida Mandal, audaciously displayed the initials of Chhota Rajan on its walls. This practice was, however, stopped when the Mumbai police launched a crackdown on the mafia.

  In 2003, the police demolished a part of the pandal, claiming that it was larger than the specified size. A senior crime branch official went on to state: ‘The shrinking in size of the pandal indicates the diminishing clout of Chhota Rajan.’ According to a Times of India report titled ‘Rajan’s Ganpati show-of-strength diminishes’, there was a police crackdown on the organizers when judge A.P. Bhangale of the MCOCA court, in 2001, ordered a suo motu probe into the funding of the Ganeshotsav – after reading an article that stated that the organizers had spent Rs 30 lakh on the decoration and celebrations. The probe failed to establish a link between Rajan and the Sahyadri Krida Mandal. Except once, when a pall of gloom descended on the pandal, the fervour of celebrations at the Tilak Nagar Ganeshotsav has never dimmed.

  After the killing of Sautya in Dubai, Chhota Shakeel decided to get even with Rajan by attacking his financial muscle. Builder Omprakash Kukreja of Chembur was a known Rajan sympathizer. According to the police, he used to contribute Rs 50 lakh for the Sahyadri Krida Mandal’s Ganeshotsav. A police dossier says that Kukreja also stored weapons for Rajan. Shakeel decided to cut off Kukreja’s monetary support to Chhota Rajan. He wanted to avenge Sautya’s killing and also spoil Rajan’s Ganpati extravaganza.

  On 18 September 1995, a month after Sautya’s killing, three gunmen barged into Kukreja’s office and started firing indiscriminately. The cops suspect an AK-47 was used in the firing, which resulted in the death of Kukreja and two of his employees – Deepak Bilkiya and Mohammad Ansari.

  Rajan’s gang was grief-stricken and this temporarily affected the celebrations. The Mumbai police never resolved the case nor did they arrest the shooters involved in the killing; the file was closed on 11 November 1996 and marked ‘A’: true but undetected.

  Rajan, who knew that Kukreja had been killed to weaken him financially, decided to retaliate in a similar fashion.

  On 13 November 1995, Rajan’s men shot dead the managing director of East–West Airlines, Thakiyuddeen Wahid. The airline was India’s first private domestic airline and it had expanded at a rapid pace. Rajan had always maintained that Dawood had invested heavily in the airlines, a claim refuted by Wahid and his family.

  At stake was supremacy in a new era, in cash-rich Mumbai. Dawood wanted to prove that he was the top boss, while Rajan was determined to prove it was he who called the shots in Mumbai. Rajan went a step further and joined hands with Arun Gawli, at last. Together, they decided to uproot the Dawood gang from the city.

  While the police maintained that Wahid’s killing was Rajan’s handiwork, they were not able to make any arrests to substantiate their claims. It was being speculated that perhaps Dawood himself had ordered the killing, because Wahid had refused to heed extortion demands. The Week even published an interview with ‘an unidentified Dawood aide’, claiming it could be that gang’s handiwork. A threat to kill Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray was also made in the same interview.

  The picture only became clear after Harinder Baweja, one of India’s most intrepid investigative journalists, scored a scoop early in 1996. She managed to trace Chhota Rajan to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and spoke to him. In the profession for barely a decade or so, she was working as a special correspondent with India Today when she managed to get the interview with Rajan (excerpts below).

  Q. Why did you leave Dawood?

  A. He is not a man worth talking about. He betrayed both me and the nation. He got three of my men killed to try and reduce my power. He killed them in the worst possible fashion – by befriending them first, inviting them over and dining with them. He thinks he has reduced my power and strength, but three people are not going to make a difference when there are a thousand others with me. It was the manner in which he did things that smacks of betrayal.

  Q. And why do you say he betrayed the nation?

  A. He was the brain behind the Bombay bomb blasts in which hundreds of innocents lost their lives.

  Q. You are making a very serious charge. How do you know that he was involved in the blasts?

  A. Because at that time (March 1993) I was in Dubai and Dawood was in Karachi. He returned 2–3 days after the blasts and was inundated with calls congratulating him. I asked him about his involvement and, of course, he denied it. You see, by March we were in any case falling out with each other. Differences had crept in after the killing of my three associates and I was not part of the many closed-door meetings in which Tiger Memon and Dawood were together. There was also talk of landings in my presence.

  Q. Why were you not part of the conspiracy?

  A. I was not in the inner circle any more and if I had had any idea, I would not have allowed it to happen. Perhaps Dawood suspected that.

  Q. How could you have prevented the blasts, said to have been planned with the help and support of Pakistan? It wasn’t a one-man operation.

  A. I would have told the department or contacted someone in the Indian government. I would also have put my own men on the job.

  Q. How did you finally leave the gang and escape from Dubai? They must have been keeping an eye on you.

  A. Not just that. My passport had gone to the Indian embassy for renewal and I never got it back.

  Q. But didn’t you have a receipt?

  A. I had a receipt – in fact, I still have it, but Dawood told me that the embassy had instructions not to renew my passport. The truth, however, is that he got it renewed but never gave it back to me. Along with mine, he had given his brother Noora’s passport, which came back renewed. It was his way of pressurizing me. Anyway, it may be news to him, but I still have an Indian passport issued in Dubai.

  Q. How could he get it renewed? You mean he had contacts even in the Indian embassy?

  A. Yes, money means a lot in this business and can buy you anything.

  Q. So how did you leave Dubai?

  A. I got myself another passport. But don’t ask me how because I will not spell it out.

  Q. You finally parted company after the blasts and have now become his opponent. The Bombay police believe that your gang is behind the killing of Thakiyudeen Wahid, the managing director of East–West Airlines.

  A. I gave the instructions for Wahid’s killing. He was Dawood’s financier in India. I got him killed because I want to take revenge on Dawood for the bomb blasts. Before that, Sunil Sawant, another very close associate of Dawood, was bumped off on the streets of Dubai. I want to eliminate all t
he people who have let down the country by conspiring to blow up Bombay.

  Q. But Dubai is supposed to be Dawood’s headquarters. He has been controlling the Bombay underworld from there for so many years.

  A. Dawood is only a media don and he has been in Pakistan for over two years now, not having the guts to go back to Dubai. I have my contacts and resources and have proved that I can get at him, even if it means planning an operation in Dubai. Sawant was Dawood’s main hitman and we got him despite all his security guards. Now I am looking for Dawood.

  Q. But you say he is in Pakistan...

  A. So what? I know where he is and we have already made one attempt on his life in Karachi. There are smugglers in Pakistan who are opposed to him because he is stepping on their turf. He might think that Pakistan is safe because it is an Islamic country, but there are people there who want him as badly as I do. I will not rest till I finish him off. He is my nation’s enemy and has to be taught a lesson.

  Q. How are you any different? After all, you are also working against the nation.

  A. I have never harmed the nation. My fight is against Dawood.

  Q. But you are also a killer, a criminal...

  A. I am killing Dawood’s men. In fact, I am making the police’s job easier and am doing the country a good turn by getting rid of those who conspired to destabilize it.

  Q. It seems odd that you should go on about the country when you admit that you will continue to indulge in killings. What about Wahid’s killing?

  A. I gave the instructions for Wahid’s murder. He was Dawood’s financier in India. East-West Airlines is, in fact, owned by Dawood. Wahid used to come to Dubai – where I also met him – often and Dawood told me that he was starting an airline. It was important to kill Wahid for that was another way of reducing Dawood’s power.

  Q. So you killed Wahid to avenge the killing of Kukreja, who was supposed to be your financier.