Byculla to Bangkok

by Hussain Zaidi

  Gawli, too, believed in the Sena’s promise of more power to the sons of the soil, even if they were on the wrong side of the law. So, when he managed to get bail and leave Yerawada jail, he landed up at home looking much more confident and happy. Dagdi Chawl was bedecked like a bride in his honour.

  Gawli wanted to capitalize on the Sena’s promise of patronage. He had begun to idolize Thackeray and spared no opportunity to express his profound reverence for the Sena supremo. Thackeray’s photograph was prominently displayed at all public functions at Dagdi Chawl. For once, the gang felt invincible, with the blessings of a godfather upon their heads.

  Gawli knew that even if the Sena government spared him by not slapping unfair cases against him, he was not safe from Dawood’s machinations. He was advised by his think tank – his wife and top gang members – that he should seek police protection against Dawood. Gawli quite liked the idea. Having the police around him would stop the rest of the police force as well as other gangs from touching him. He sought the Sena boss’s consent to seek security cover. As expected, he was given the go-ahead by Matoshree, but was told to make a formal application to the police and the home department.

  All such applications for security go through a process of screening and clearing by various departments of the Mumbai police, including the crime and protection branches, and along the way, they pass through the hands of several top-ranking officers. The requests are then forwarded to the additional chief secretary’s office, which in turn presents them to the home minister.

  Home Minister Gopinath Munde, a BJP stalwart, was also the deputy chief minister of the BJP–Shiv Sena coalition, and he ruled his ministry with an iron fist. Despite the fact that the Sena was the senior partner in the coalition, Munde believed that he represented the aspect of the party that was concerned with a national image. He also believed that the Sena lacked serious orientation on macro issues in politics. He literally threw Gawli’s file out of the door, lambasting his officers for letting it reach his table in the first place. He demanded an explanation: how had such an audacious application passed through so many departments without being rejected at the initial stage itself? The officers and bureaucrats could only mumble that they had acted on the recommendations of the Sena leaders. But Munde was clear that no man with a criminal record would get state security cover, even if the recommendation came from the highest quarters.

  When a disappointed Gawli got in touch with Matoshree, he was told that his request had been turned down by Munde. Gawli then decided to seek the intervention of a relative, a BJP MLA from Madhya Pradesh. Munde was cornered by this leader from a neighbouring state and he did not know how to wriggle out of the situation. So he tried another approach. He convinced the MLA that Gawli’s protection had been refused on the direct orders of the Sena supremo. This was blatant subterfuge, but Gawli was gullible enough to believe it, and was enraged by the Sena’s duplicity.

  Munde then asked his police machinery to ensure that Gawli was thrown behind bars, under some pretext or the other. Munde knew the don belonged in jail, and it was also a place where he would remain safe. Before Gawli could confront the Sena leaders and what he believed was their duplicity, he was picked up in March 1996 and lodged at the Harsul jail in Aurangabad.

  Gawli began to notice a subtle shift in the state government’s attitude towards him. While Ashwin Naik was given bail on medical grounds, facilitating his escape from the country, Gawli was reduced to being a sitting duck for Dawood in jail. He had been arrested on flimsy grounds and hauled off to a high-security prison.

  While in jail, more events conspired to effect Gawli’s final divorce from the Shiv Sena. Gawli held regular durbars for his men and met them frequently to issue directions to his gang members. His intelligence network remained well-oiled, including his moles and spies in rival gangs. One such person was Lalit Shah, who remained his confidante and lookout for more than fifteen years.

  Gawli trusted Shah. He was a business partner of Amar Naik and they ran a video library together in Matunga. Though Shah was close to both ganglords, he owed allegiance to Gawli. He was in direct touch with him and thought him to be the more powerful and wealthy don, so he remained loyal to him.

  Gawli valued Shah’s advice, and was willing to risk large sums of money on his recommendation. When Shah advised him to invest Rs 30 lakh in Raghuvanshi Mills, which was owned by Vallabh Thakkar – Thakkar had promised that the amount would be doubled in a year’s time – Gawli blindly asked Sada Pawle to deliver the money to the mill owner.

  Lalit Shah frequently met Gawli at Harsul jail. On one such trip, Shah tipped him off to the fact that the Sena government was planning to shift him to Amravati jail, which was a 690-km or fourteen-hour journey from Mumbai. Gawli was comfortably settled in Harsul jail in Aurangabad, which was just twelve hours from Mumbai. It takes a long time to make the atmosphere in a jail conducive to one’s stay, and as he had no base in Amravati, Gawli was averse to the idea of being shifted there. It is a long process: to buy jail officials, threaten them, intimidate other jail inmates and tame the government machinery to do your bidding. Gawli was also not sure about the motive behind the move. He asked Lalit Shah to use his connections in the Mantralaya to stop the transfer, and Shah assured him that he would pull all strings to do so.

  On his next visit, however, Shah dropped a bombshell. He said the transfer to Amravati jail could not be stopped because the orders had come directly from Jayant Jadhav, who was like a godson or Manasputra to Bal Thackeray. Gawli failed to understand what Jadhav’s role could be in this. He did not even know Jadhav. But Shah seemed to have inside information on the whole game plan.

  He told Gawli that Jadhav was a friend of Amar Naik, and it was at Naik’s behest that the transfer was taking place. Naik’s plan was to kill Gawli en route from Harsul to Amravati jail, Shah told him. Gawli was dumbstruck. Even under the Congress-I, they had never conspired to kill him in such a cold-blooded manner. Yet, here was the Shiv Sena, which was run by his own godfather, baying for his blood. He decided to bump off Jadhav. (In the underworld, there is little sympathy for those caught in the crosshairs in a situation that has nothing to do with them. In an extreme example, two girls had been shot at while they were standing at a bus-stop because they had been laughing and a gangster, Dilip Bua, did not like it.) On 30 April 1996, Jadhav was shot dead near his residence in Kamdar Park, Dadar. For the police, media and political analysts, it was a baffling case. They were not willing to believe that Gawli had the temerity to take on the might of the ruling Shiv Sena so blatantly. Killing Thackeray’s godson was like an attack on the Sena chief himself. Seven people were arrested by the police and Gawli, too, was booked for the killing.

  The police filed a report with the home department about Gawli being too comfortable in the jail – so much so that he had even plotted and executed a high-profile killing. They recommended his transfer to another jail immediately. The government decided to send him to Yerawada jail in Pune.

  Gawli was furious. Though Yerawada jail was like a second home to him, the only thing he could think of these days was revenge against the Shiv Sena. He had launched his first attack on the Sena, but he was not satisfied; he wanted to go full throttle against the party that had promised to support him but had then back-stabbed and betrayed him in the most treacherous manner.

  One day, Shah brought a surprise visitor to Yerawada jail: Jitendra Dabholkar, an office-bearer in the Kamgar Sena, the labour wing of the Shiv Sena. His fiefdom was the Hotel Oberoi, where workers obeyed his union’s word without question. Dabholkar knew how a political party functioned and was well-versed in its management and promotion. Gawli and he joined hands to form a new political party. Dabholkar opened an office in Lalbaug, the heart of the mill land area, and began working on a plan.

  Within a few months, Gawli had managed to secure bail in the Jayant Jadhav murder case and returned to Dagdi Chawl. Soon Dabholkar floated the new party that he called the Akhil Bharatiya Sen
a (ABS). Gawli was designated as its president, while Dabholkar became the secretary. Gawli’s wife, Asha, was the head of the women’s wing of the party. Dabholkar managed to woo Bharat Mhatre, a close confidante of Chhagan Bhujbal, to ABS. Mhatre became the vice-president of the party. ABS also managed to induct a few disgruntled Shiv Sena workers. The number of ABS members and ex-Sainiks joining the party increased steadily.

  Gawli’s rebellion baffled the Sena leaders. They had no notion that he had been manipulated into taking on his erstwhile supporters. They did not know that Gawli’s reason for launching a political party was the Shiv Sena’s support for Amar and Ashwin Naik. By now, Gawli had begun talking against the Sena and its flawed policies openly.

  Thackeray, never one to mince words, made his own position amply clear. ‘We had relations. Gawli went to prison under the Congress regime and now he is fighting against me. But he should remember that if he is alive today, it is because of Bal Thackeray.’ He concluded, ‘Gawli deserted me a few months ago.’

  THIRTY

  The Face-off

  The small room in Nagpada police station, in the heart of south Mumbai, was crammed with press reporters and news hounds. They had come for a first-hand account of the chase that had landed gangster Amar Naik in a body bag. Never before in the history of the Mumbai mafia had a top don been felled by the police. The man who had managed the feat, Assistant Police Inspector Vijay Salaskar, was the cynosure of all eyes.

  The press reporters, who outnumbered the television reporters, were restless and wanted Salaskar to start the press briefing immediately. It was an informal gathering. Everybody had assembled by word of mouth. When the clamour for him to speak got too much, Salaskar raised a hand for silence and stood up, unsmiling as usual. His eyes had still not learned to trust, and you couldn’t help thinking he had been born with a scowl on his face.

  In typical police jargon, he began to describe the hunt for the most elusive outlaw of Mumbai, and how he had vanquished him.

  ‘We had received prior information that Amar Naik was expected to visit the Madanpura area after midnight. My team and I laid a trap for him and began the long wait. None of us knew what he looked like. Then, we saw a white Fiat car slowly approaching the spot. A man stepped out of the car. As there was no way we could identify him, we had to use the clichéd approach of surprising a criminal. One of my officers nodded at me and stepped out from his position. He called out to Amar, showing utmost familiarity:

  ‘“Kaiy re Amar, tu ithe?” (Hey Amar, what are you doing here?)

  ‘The man was startled, and he turned towards the plainclothes officer without thinking. One look at the man and Amar sized him up as a cop. In a quick reflex movement, which seemed blurred owing to the speed, Amar whipped out his Glock and fired at him. The cop showed presence of mind and dashed behind a vehicle, saving himself from the bullet, but injuring his shoulder.

  ‘Amar began running. I lost no time and got into the vehicle and began chasing him, at the same time calling out to him. “Amar Thaamb… Amarrrr!”… But he did not stop. It was the dead of night and the whole of the Madanpura–Agripada stretch, which buzzed with activity during the day, was quiet. Everybody was fast asleep at that hour.

  ‘He passed the Salvation Army building and I kept chasing him. He had become aware of my presence, and the trap. Then he turned onto the road leading to the YMCA and my car, which had climbed onto the pavement, came to a halt.

  ‘I jumped out. Suddenly, he turned and fired. I ducked and knelt down on the pavement. I was wearing a bullet-proof jacket; the bullets grazed past my vest. I took aim on his leg and fired. The bullet hit him in the back. He doubled up with pain and tried to run, but pain slowed his reflexes.

  ‘I rose and kept the gun pointed at him. Suddenly, I saw that he had turned again and a flash of light fell on his face. I will never forget that face. He was gritting his teeth, his eyes full of fury – it was the face of a resolute man, who seemed to know that if he was not quick enough to shoot me, he would die.

  ‘All my life, encounters have been split-second decisions. I knew that this was the moment of truth. It was either him or me. I refused to die. I raised my gun and before he could shower me with bullets, I fired at him, more to save myself than to kill him. I was relieved to see him crash to the ground. My team members had by then caught up with me. I went closer to him, and disarmed him. He had another gun tucked in his pocket. He was lying flat on the ground, blood oozing from several wounds. His eyes were glazed, his jaw was still clenched. I asked my team to rush him to Nair Hospital at Bombay Central. But we could not save him.’

  Salaskar was gesticulating with his hands as he animatedly described the encounter.

  When he finished, the questions began. The Indian Express reporter was the first. ‘How is it possible that Amar Naik, who was using a Glock, could not even injure you or any of your team members, while you with an ordinary revolver could kill him and escape unhurt?’

  There was a deafening silence in the room. Everyone thought the reporter had cornered him. Salaskar was, however, cool personified. He ruptured the silence with a disdainful laugh. ‘I am a police officer with thirteen years of experience behind me. I am a trained cop, part of a special squad of police. I am a veteran of fifty encounters. I have been in gunfights with hardened criminals. Criminals are desperadoes. They are not trained shooters. At times they cannot even shoot straight. It is not important to have an automatic weapon. What counts is the man behind the weapon. How many men had Amar killed in his life? He delegated the killings to his people. I work in the field and go through such near-death experiences every day. I am not a coward to send my men to get gangsters. I lead from the front.’

  The horde of reporters was hushed. ‘But why did you not target his leg or arm, which would have meant capturing him alive and not killing him?’ ventured a reporter who worked with a Marathi daily.

  ‘You know, Shrikant, we were not in a peaceful business negotiation across the table, with time and space to think, plan and react to propositions. We were in a duel. Both of us had guns. He would not have hesitated before pumping the bullets into us if we had not preempted it. We don’t always want to kill, but it happens.’

  The motley group of reporters seemed satisfied. Some of them congratulated Salaskar and then dispersed. They had already published the first story on 11 August 1996, when the Amar Naik encounter had made it to the headlines on the front page of most newspapers, or at least second lead. The killing of Amar Naik was like the jewel in the crown of the Mumbai police. It was their biggest trophy. Amar Naik was a gangster, a druglord, and the ringleader of a gang that had in its ranks several educated youth. If he had lived a little longer, there is no doubt that he would have rewritten the history of the Mumbai mafia.

  At the informal press gathering, while Salaskar got all the accolades, the other policemen involved in the encounter were somehow sidelined. This included Police Inspector Ajit Wagh, Sub-inspector Satish Mayekar and Sub-inspector Dinesh Ahir, who had reportedly recognized Amar Naik and called out to him.

  At the briefing, Salaskar revealed that Amar Naik had given them the slip several times in the past, just when they thought they had got him. When they did get him, he was carrying a pager, Rs 10,000 in cash, a card from a Thailand hotel and other documents from Bangkok. This was the first time that the police had heard of a Mumbai criminal with contacts in the Thai capital. Amar had been carrying two pistols – an Austrian-make Glock and a Chinese .9mm star pistol. His fondness for weapons was known to the police, just as it was known in the mafia circles. Salaskar apparently afraid that Amar would also be carrying an Uzi submachine gun. Naik had always believed that plenty of firepower would give him an edge over his rivals and cops. But his end was tame, too tame for a don who was such an illusionist, a master of disguises. His guns seemed to have failed him. Naik, the police said, had fired six rounds while the police team fired seventeen.

  The press drew a parallel with the encounter kill
ing of Colombian druglord Pablo Escobar, who had been worth US$227 billion. They say Escobar was hunted and killed in December 1993 by Search Bloc, a special squad of 200 policemen created only to get him. There were also claims that Escobar had committed suicide – his capture seemed so unbelievable. Similarly, that Naik, known for his Houdini acts, was killed by a handful of police officers seemed a bit difficult to swallow. He was nowhere in the league of Escobar in terms of wealth and notoriety. However, a few common factors made the press draw the comparison. Both men were druglords, and had influence with the ruling government. So much so that finally the government itself resolved to put an end to the menace. In Amar’s case, it was the Shiv Sena–BJP combine.

  While most of the press fraternity hailed Salaskar as a hero, two reporters from Mumbai thought differently. An Indian Express reporter and Prem Shukla, chief reporter of the Hindi tabloid Dopahar ka Saamna, had their own take on the Amar Naik encounter. Shukla did a series of stories on Naik’s death. The Indian Express reporter, too, pursued the story and found a different version from the official one.

  It went something like this: Drug baron Nari Khan, who had been acquitted by the specially designated NDPS court, was released from Arthur Road jail on 9 August. Nari left the jail premises empty-handed. He had even donated his comfortable mattress to his longtime cell mate, Askandar Shah. Not a single person was waiting outside the jail to receive the billionaire druglord. The woman he loved had duped him and he was a shattered man. He walked out of the jail, and in a little while reached a signal adjacent to 144 Tenements, the headquarters of the Amar Naik gang. A boy passed by and gave him a message, asking him to meet someone at Shabri Bar at Vile Parle. Unaware that he was being tailed, Nari whiled away the entire day doing nothing and reached the bar in the evening.

  The police team saw Nari rendezvous with Naik, and watched as the two men spoke at length before leaving the bar together. The next instant, the police team swooped down and detained them. As Amar Naik had undergone facial reconstruction, they did not recognize him until Nari broke down and admitted who his companion had been. The cops had finally tracked down Naik but they realized that it would not be wise to leave an eyewitness like Nari Khan alive. They first killed Amar in an encounter, and kept Nari at an undisclosed location for two days. Subsequently, Nari Khan was killed in an encounter at Vikhroli while he was ‘carrying one kilo of heroin’.