Authors: S. Hussain Zaidi
There were more and more non-Muslim members being inducted now, and Dawood’s gang had a greater outreach than any other gang in Bombay.
He now had two Rajans in his gang—South Indian Bada Rajan and Maharashtrian Chhota Rajan—and two Shakeels—Shakeel Lamboo because of his height and Chhota Shakeel. Apart from the Hindu dons that Khalid had inducted, Danny, Sanjay Raggad, and Sharad Shetty were all reaching out to other gangs. The Muslim criterion previously requisite for those who wanted to be in Dawood’s gang was forgotten, waning into the dusk of the Middle Eastern shores.
Khalid, the architect of the secular gang model, bid adieu to Dawood and his insecurities and chose to retire from the active mafia life. This was perhaps the only split in the mafia that took place without any violence and bloodshed. Perhaps that is why Dawood continues to harbour the guilt of being unfair to Khalid—the man who was instrumental in elevating him to lofty heights.
27
Mafia’s Bollywood Debut
T
he white Fiat came to a screeching halt. Even before Mushir Alam could understand what was happening, three men came out of the Ambassador which had just intercepted his car, rushed towards him, and dragged him out. At a busy Worli intersection in broad daylight, Mushir could not believe that he was being kidnapped by men brandishing swords, a chopper and a gun in their hands. It was later learnt that the men were part of the most dreaded organised syndicate of the time—-Amirzada, Alamzeb, Abdul Latif, and Shehzad Khan.
Even before Mushir could raise a word of protest or raise an alarm for help, he was bundled into the rear seat of the white Ambassador whose engine was still running and the driver behind the wheel was warily looking outside. The men forced him to sit in the middle and two of them sat on either side of him, while the other one sat in front. Mushir was blindfolded with a strip of white cloth and the kidnappers left the car behind on the road and escaped. Bombay’s biggest kidnapping so far was over in a matter of less than a minute. The Bollywood mogul, Mushir Alam of Mushir-Riaz fame was abducted within yards from his office. Mushir-Riaz were known for making films with Dilip Kumar and they had shot to fame with movies like
Safar, Bairaag,
and the latest blockbuster
Shakti
starring Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan. Such an incident had never happened in Bombay.
On that fateful day, as usual Mushir had left his office M.R. Productions at Filmistan building in Worli at around 4:30 pm. He had an appointment in south Bombay. He had barely gone a few yards on the Annie Besant Road when he was ambushed.
What Mushir did not know was that he was being tailed by the white Ambassador soon after he had left the office. The car driver kept irritating him by coming dangerously close instead of keeping a safe distance. Only once he had an uncomfortable feeling about the car but he had promptly brushed that aside. But his heart leaped to his mouth when he saw the Ambassador suddenly swerve towards a side and abruptly brake in front of him. Mushir almost rammed into the Ambassador. Before he could give vent to his anger and scream his lungs out, the men shoved him into their car and took him to an unknown location.
Mushir grimaced with discomfort and tried to raise his head and peep through the slit that was left between his nose and corner of the eye. Abdul Latif, one of his tormentors, saw him peering furtively from the hood and pushed him down to the floor of the car.
The movie magnate Mushir was lying at the feet of the thugs. But he realised soon that they would not kill him but extract some money out of him. Mushir was trying to catch some glimpses of the place that he was being taken to. Suddenly, he caught a major rush of colour which he soon realised was a poster of
Sholay
. Mushir realised that he was somewhere close to a hoarding of the film. Little did he know that this would be a vital clue in tracing the whereabouts of his kidnappers. After ten minutes of further driving, the car halted and all of them trooped out. Mushir was helped out of the car.
‘Watch your step, there is a plank ahead’, someone instructed Mushir as he was nudged to move forward. Mushir raised his foot higher, climbed the plank. ‘There are stairs ahead, be careful’,
he was instructed again. Mushir began climbing what seemed like wooden stairs as he held on to the wooden railings. He felt disoriented. Ironically, he never had any such scenes in his movies either. When he reached a landing, he was asked to turn and walk towards his left. As he was walking, he heard a chorus of children reciting some Quranic verses. Mushir had the sense of being in a building which was thickly populated. The realisation comforted him that he was not in some isolated spot. He was ushered into a room and the blinds were removed from his eyes. The first thing he saw was the photograph of the Prophet Mohammad’s green tomb of Masjid Nabavi in the holy city of Madina.
The next few hours were very painful and intolerable for him. They threatened, abused, and slapped Mushir. They all looked serious and menacing. Mushir learnt that they were well aware about the business that
Shakti
had made.
‘
Hamein sirf pacchis lakh chahiye
[we want only Rs 25 lakhs]’, said Amirzada in a very polite manner and in a tone that suggested that Mushir owed him a lot but he was being considerate in demanding such a paltry amount. Mushir was forced to make a call to his brother-in-law and partner, Mohammad Riaz, and ask him to get whatever liquid cash he could organise and keep it ready to be delivered at a place which would be told to him. Obviously, he was not supposed to seek any kind of help from anyone, including the police. Riaz agreed and in the evening at around 9 pm, Riaz and Harish Sugandh delivered 2.80 lakh rupees in cash, which was what he could put together in the short time, to Amirzada and Alamzeb. Mushir was reunited with Riaz and a nightmare had ended.
28
Pathan in Patharwali Building
S
ub-inspector Ishaq Bagwan had just joined the Crime Branch. He had been in service for over half a dozen years now, being an officer from the 1974 batch. But he was restless and wanted to do something soon. He was still reeling with anger over the way Sabir had been shot dead at a petrol pump by the Pathans and the Crime Branch could not make much headway except for the intelligence that the Pathans, namely, Amirzada and Alamzeb, had killed him. For Bagwan, this was a blatant assault on the pride of the police machinery. The Crime Branch was known as DCB CID, Detection of Crime Branch, Criminal Investigation Department and Bagwan was faced with a fresh challenge; the latest kidnapping.
Film producer Mushir Ahmed and his brother-in-law-Riaz Ahmed were big names in Bollywood. The daylight abduction of Mushir at the crowded junction of Worli seaface was a major blemish on the reputation of the Bombay cops. Not only did the intelligence of the police network fail, they remained totally clueless about the entire incident and the payment of ransom money, until thespian Dilip Kumar himself strode to the Crime Branch headquarters and met senior police inspector Madhukar Zende to register the filmmaker’s abduction.
Dilip Kumar, along with Mushir, had visited the police headquarters and met Police Commissioner Julio Ribeiro. He apprised him of the whole incident and Ribeiro immediately summoned Zende to his office, assigning the case to him. Zende subsequently spoke to both the actor and filmmaker and respectfully escorted them to the Crime Branch, so he could take down their statement and launch the investigation. Bagwan was inducted into the investigating team and he sat in on the statements of Mushir and Dilip Kumar.
Mushir gave a description of the whole incident; how his car had been intercepted and he was bundled into another Ambassador and blindfolded, then taken to the first floor of a building and thrown in an office-like place. Looking for some kind of clue, Zende and Bagwan tried to coax some details out of Mushir. As a filmmaker, Mushir was always alert to details, and as he recalled the incidents of that day, he gave some very vital clues to the cops. For example, he had managed to see through a slit in his blindfold a huge poster of the film
Sholay
, while he was being driven through the city. After he saw the giant poster, the car took approximately 10-12 minutes to reach its destination. Once he was dragged out, he stepped on a wooden plank on a small platform which led to a flight of wooden stairs. As he was made to walk down a corridor, he heard a chorus of kids reciting Koranic verses, giving an indication of a madrassa on the same floor.
Bagwan meticulously took down details in his diary, but his mind had already begun working: ‘A theatre with a giant poster of Sholay... After that a car drive of 10-12 minutes... An old wooden style building... A chorus of Madrassa kids...’
Immediately, he alerted all his informants and began working on his intelligence network in the city. At the time, Bagwan was known to be the most resourceful cop in town. As he sat, immersed in a file, he got a call on his direct line. Moving swiftly, he dashed towards the phone before any of his colleagues could.
‘Bagwan
sahab
, salam alaikum
[greetings], ’ a voice said.
Bagwan replied, ‘
Haan bol, kidhar tha itna din
[yes, tell me, where have you been all these days]?’
It was Baagwan’s informant, Badruddin, known as Badr. Bagwan chided him for not keeping in touch. He was pushing him to help provide leads for an ‘opening in this case’. In police terminology, opening a case means solving a crime or detecting a felony.
Badr said, ‘
Sahab, ek khabar hai, ek pata likho
[Saheb, write down this address]. That filmmaker Mushir was kept in Kadar building in Kamathipura, which houses the office of Alamzeb.’
‘Pakki khabar hai, ya…
[are you sure, or...]?’ asked Bagwan.
When a cop asks ‘
pakki khabar’
, he actually intends to find out whether the news has been verified.
‘Sahab ek dum sau takka
[yes sir, one hundred per cent],
’
Badr replied.
Bagwan lost no time in replacing the phone, asking the orderlies to get the raiding party ready and leaving the premises of the Crime Branch. Before leaving, he informed his senior Zende that he was off to Kamathipura. The sight of police vehicles patrolling the seedy bylanes of Kamathipura is common to its pimps and prostitutes, so no one really raises an eyebrow when they see cops here. They could be seeking
hafta
(protection money) or executing a small raid. But this was no single cop on a bike or just one police jeep. Here were two jeeps and a police van. The police party seemed to be prepared for any eventuality.
As the police fanned out over the fifth lane of Kamathipura and cordoned off the area, Bagwan himself barged into Kadar building, first floor office of Alamzeb’s headquarters. The well-furnished, gaudily-decorated office was empty except for Salim. Salim was a new convert, earlier known as Saniya Bhangi (sweeper), and had converted after his marriage to a Muslim girl. He used to look after the upkeep of the office and did errands for Alamzeb-Amirzada.
Bagwan took Salim into his custody, driving him back to the Crime Branch. Salim was a tough nut to crack but as it is said among cops,
Is patharwali building mein pathar bhi boltein hain
(even the toughest nuts crack in this
patharwali
building in underworld parlance). Within hours, Salim had begun to sing. He admitted that this was the place where Mushir had been confined during his captivity. But he could not provide any leads to the cops on the Pathan duo’s whereabouts.
He did say that Alamzeb’s father would know. Bagwan immediately went to Ali building on Duncan Road, where Alamzeb’s ageing father, Jangrez Khan, lived. Khan was placed under detention and finally, after realising his position, the old man cracked, giving the police an address where they could find Alamzeb.
A police team led by Zende sped to the Kalupura area of Ahmedabad. They had only two important leads from Saleem and Jangrez: a white Ambassador with number plate GUJ-7999 and a
matka
(gambling)
den behind a hotel. Even as the cops were sweeping the area for a
matka
den in Dariyaganj area, they found the white Ambassador, on the move. The police party began to follow the car. As Amirzada exited the car, the police party sprang on him and arrested him. The police also seized a huge cache of weapons which included three rifles of .12 bore, fourteen revolvers of Chinese and German Mauser make of all kinds .38, .32, and .22 and 300 cartridges. The police had not only arrested a kingpin who had engineered a filmmaker’s kidnapping, but they had also nabbed one of the culprits in the most sensational gang-war killing of the time.
29
Typewriter Thief: Rajan Nair
J
ails are supposed to detain people and deter them from further crime. In India, however, jails serve a purpose entirely opposite to what the criminal justice system purports to achieve. Sometimes, innocent people are turned into hardened criminals; people who are imprisoned mistakenly come out of jails with a crooked bent of mind, starting to think that the only recourse in order to move ahead in life is to commit further crimes. There are plenty of these examples in the annals of history of the Bombay underworld. The story of Rajan Nair alias Bada Rajan is one of those.
In the mid-seventies, Rajan Nair was a small-time tailor in a readymade factory by the name of Hindustan Apparel in Thane. He was known to be very skilled. But after toiling fourteen hours a day, he could take home only 30 or 40 rupees. Despite working for five years, he realised that he could not even get a proper house in Bombay and was getting nowhere.