Recession Hits the Underworld

There’s an eerie hush in the Mumbai underworld. Guns have made way for knives, sharpshooters for chain snatchers. Is the age of the dons over?

Early this year, the Mumbai police arrested three chain snatchers—Parvez Shaikh, Afzal Patel and Naushad Baig. They had 11 cases against them. During interrogation, these low-level thieves made a surprising confession. They were given an advance of Rs 40,000 to kill a builder, who had been asked to pay Rs 2 crore by gangster Hemant Poojary. The builder asked for time and when the time never seemed to come, Poojary ordered the hit. That such a contract would be given was really no surprise to the police. What was surprising was that a top gangster would employ chain snatchers. The underworld could not afford professional killers anymore.

In the last few months, shootouts, extortion calls and contract killings in Mumbai have almost come to a halt. There is silence in the underworld. It has been hit by what other industries call a ‘slowdown’. According to the police, the big gangs have put a freeze on new recruitment to cut down on expenses. Dawood Ibrahim, Chhota Rajan, Chhota Shakeel and Arun Gawli are all cost-cutting. Even salaries of henchmen are not being paid on time. Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria says, “Earlier, monthly salaries were paid to the gang members. Now the bosses are facing a financial crunch. They have left their gangs to fend for themselves.”

Like any other business, the underworld too runs on cash flow. When there was a boom, the underworld invested heavily in real estate and the stock market. Gangsters floated real estate companies and operated them through proxies. Money extorted from builders was reinvested in real estate or lent back at hefty interest rates. When the bubble burst, gangland went broke. The bosses hiding abroad could not give business to their gangsters in Mumbai anymore. As a result, says Praful Bhosale, a former encounter specialist who has killed over 80 alleged gangsters, small time criminals are picking their own assignments. “These are small hits,” he says.

According to Maria, in good times gangs were like corporates. Employees were bound to their dons. Now, the gangs outsource. He says, “They approach robber gangs who provide the boys and the weapons. Now the shooters are coming from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to execute the contracts. This has made the task of the police a little more difficult.”

Criminal lawyer Abbas Kazmi, who is currently the defence lawyer for the Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab, says that apart from the economic lowdown, there is another important reason why the gangs have grown more subdued. Terrorism is suddenly a bigger threat and the police has escalated its general vigilance, which has forced the underworld to lie low. Also, after the November terror attacks, any violent disruption of public life would have severe political consequences. As Assembly elections approach in Maharashtra, the state government has become more honest in its defence of citizens.

Even if the gangs choose to pay good money for high-grade gunmen, today there is a dearth of quality sharp shooters. Most of them are dead. Many are in the safety of prisons. The days of shooters who had their own branding are over. Recruitment is still on, though. The recruits are chiefly low grade thugs and jail is where the gangs find them. Petty criminals are now charmed into the major league through the enticements of lawyers and bail money. There are other campuses too. According to Hemant Desai, a former encounter specialist, MLA Arun Gawli uses his party, Akhil Bharatiya Sena to recruit freshers, while the Dawood gang recruits from Muslim dominated areas. “Earlier, all the major gangs would have common eating places (handis) in their strongholds. The youth who came there were in awe of the bhais and were given small ‘errands’ to do. Depending on their ability and interest, they graduated to bigger tasks,” Desai says. Now, the recruits and their placements are modest.

The Dawood gang is almost entirely decimated. Chhota Rajan has only the incarcerated D K Rao with him, the rest have broken away. Only the Gawli gang is somewhat intact but it is not growing. It is also a gang living in fear. “One of Gawli’s top henchman, Rajesh More, was so afraid of being shot dead in an encounter that he walked into a police station and got himself arrested,” says a police officer. Ravi Pujary and Hemant Poojary (not related) are the most active gangsters today, both vying for dominance in Mumbai. They recruit shooters from Karnataka.

The most humiliating aspect of the current state of the Mumbai underworld is that it is unable to afford its most effective tool—the gun. The shortage of firearms is a major reason why there is a steep fall in underworld crime, according to the police. Automatic rifles are no longer easy to acquire and most gangs have to be content with crude revolvers and pistols. The desi katta (a country-made one-round pistol) costs between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,500. A country-made revolver with five to seven rounds costs Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000. A factory-made Indian revolver comes at Rs 25,000 to Rs 35,000. Revolvers of foreign make are priced between Rs 1.25 and Rs 1.50 lakh. Considering the nature of the business, these are modest costs, but the underworld today is so broke that it has resorted to procuring weapons on hire. The shooter has to deposit the cost of the weapons with the supplier. Once the operation is over , the weapon is returned to the supplier in exchange for the deposit minus the rental charge. This situation has inadvertently helped the gangs. Since a single weapon is used for several crimes, investigation has become difficult.

The shortage of guns has seen the return of knives and choppers. As a result, instances of stabbings have increased. Rampuri knives without the spring action feature cost between Rs 50 and Rs 75, while the buttoned ones cost between Rs 100 and Rs 200. A chopper is similarly priced, but swords cost more.

There was an unwritten law in the Mumbai mafia—no women in the business. But the situation changed when the dons were jailed or had to flee abroad. Haseena Parker (or Haseena Aapa), the 47-year-old sister of Dawood Ibrahim, is into real estate. Police say her brother operates through her and is buying disputed property all over Mumbai and is also eyeing slum rehabilitation and MHADA (Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority) redevelopment projects.

Chhota Rajan’s wife Sujata Nikhalje (also known as Nani) expanded his base in central Mumbai. Police say that she was approached by builders when they wanted to demolish and redevelop the plot of two 60-year-old buildings. The residents did not want to move out until Sujata ‘intervened’. After the successful intervention, she established her own outfit, Khushi Developers Private Limited. Police say that she forced tenants in 150 buildings in central Mumbai to move out so that she could redevelop the plots. She was arrested on a complaint of extortion by one of the residents. She is in jail, facing charges.

Gangster Ravi Pujari’s wife Padma continues to be on the absconders’ list. Police say that when Pujari, who used to be with the Chhota Rajan gang, went into hiding in Nepal, Padma handled her husband’s businesses. When she submitted a fake school leaving certificate in her passport application, they started investigating her financial transactions. She soon fled.

Gawli’s wife Asha (also called Mummy) has been instrumental in her husband’s foray into politics. He was arrested in April 2008 in an extortion case and has been in jail since. Police records indicate that Gawli had been extorting money from a city builder between October 2005 and May 2006. Calls were made to the builder from Dagdi Chawl, the walled fortress of the gangster, and he was asked to pay about Rs 50 lakh. The builder paid the money in two installments. However, the calls came again when the builder started another project in Prabhadevi. He went to the police, who wasted no time in taking Gawli into custody. Asha lives in Dagdi Chawl and looks after her husband’s political and social ‘affairs’. She is also into bhakti singing and records devotional songs.

Not just wives, even mothers are getting involved. Slain gangster Suresh Manchekar, a Dawood henchman, ran a flourishing extortion racket in Parel, the old heart of Mumbai. After his death, his 72-year-old mother Lakshmi took up the extortion business along with Manchekar’s 28-year-old wife Supriya. Both were arrested for extortion. A special MCOCA Court convicted Lakshmi Manchekar to life imprisonment for the murder of builder Mahendra Khanvilkar.

Rakesh Maria says, “The underworld will always search for avenues where no education or technical qualification is required.” This is one reason why the underworld seems to be so deeply entrenched in politics. The television cable industry too is believed to be an underworld preserve.

Since 1990, when the Amar Naik gang shot dead a cable operator in Girgaum, violence has become an integral part of the business. Cable also brings gangsters and politicians together. A Rajan affiliate, Kashi Pashi (who has contested the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corp elections on a Nationalist Congress Party ticket) is said to operate in the western suburbs along with the brother of an influential Shiv Sena politician. Chhota Rajan’s brother, Deepak Nikhalje, who produced the film Vaastav, and contested on an RPI ticket from Chembur in 2004, looks after the cable business in Thane.

Pradeep ‘Bandya’ Madgaonkar, one of the biggest cable operators in Navi Mumbai, is allegedly a former Chhota Rajan aide, now conducting business for Chhota Shakeel. He is on the list of wanted criminals and was an office bearer of the Congress in Navi Mumbai. Ravi Pujary’s brother operates in the Dombivli-Kalyan belt and is a front man for a political heavyweight from the Nationalist Congress Party.

Close relatives of gangsters are closely involved with mainstream political parties. When wheel-chair bound Ashwin Naik, a former gangster, was released from jail he met Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray at his residence. There is talk that the Sena might field him against Gawli in the impending Assembly polls. Naik’s deceased wife Neeta was a Sena corporator for two terms until she was murdered in 2003. Naik, who was accused of her murder, was later acquitted. Interestingly, according to police officers, one of the reasons why extortion threats have gone down is that the underworld is striking business deals with politicians.

About The Author

Haima Deshpande