Authors: S. Hussain Zaidi
Rizvi:
Bilkul bilkul.
[Absolutely.]
Shakeel:
Bolna bhai ne bola tera baap teri
life
kharab kar dega.
[Tell him that I said that his dad will end up ruining his life.]
The conversation was a little worrisome and the cops had now become edgy with Shakeel’s designs on the film industry.
In January 2001, Shakeel decided to make Rakesh Roshan an example for the industry and sent his men to open fire on him just to scare him. Subsequent investigations revealed that the shooter wanted to shoot at the car, but unfortunately a bullet grazed Rakesh’s arm. The bald filmmaker, already under a lot of pressure, had put up a brave front in the face of the intimidation of Mumbai’s underworld. He had defied Shakeel one time too many.
When Shakeel’s men ambushed Rakesh as he was getting into his car outside his office, he was taken by surprise as they opened fire on him. Despite the bullet injuries, Roshan drove off himself and reached Cooper Hospital safely. Calm in the face of this unexpected adversity, he saw a doctor and called his family members to tell them what had happened.
The shooting incident spread panic waves in the film industry. A pall of fear and terror descended on its glamorous denizens.
There was widespread panic and an atmosphere of intense paranoia within the film fraternity; most of its members began to fear for their safety. While cops were listening they found that during the course of one of the conversations Shakeel had wanted Ajay Devgn to shift the dates of his film
Raju Chacha
,
so that they did not clash with those of
Chori Chori Chupke Chupke
. As a result, Kumar Mangal (Ajay’s secretary) was threatened.
Moreover, Shakeel had said in one of his conversations that if Shah Rukh continued to be non-compliant, shots should be fired at his car; Shakeel had claimed boastfully that within half an hour, the star would call back and humbly say that he was ready to work. But the plan was, for some inexplicable reason, never acted upon. Perhaps he was merely boasting, and actually had no intention of doing this.
It was around this point that the police realised that they could not wait any longer and would have to move in on the targets. Rizvi was arrested under the MCOCA on 13 November and subsequently, the man known to the underworld as BS was also picked up. Realising that a whopping eighty-four witnesses were needed to convict Rizvi, the police was on the warpath. No less than sixty-six police officers had been put on surveillance and in investigating teams in order to create an airtight case against Rizvi, identifying him as Shakeel’s henchman.
Shakeel’s henchman and Rizvi’s assistant Abdul Rahim Allah Baksh and later Anjum Fazlani were also arrested for their complicity. It was the first time that anyone had seen a police commissioner (Mahesh Narayan Singh) take such severe action against the film fraternity. He demanded that everyone associated with the film be quizzed at length, irrespective of whether it was a big name like Salman or a simple spot boy on the set. It was later established that Salman, Rani, Abbas-Mustan, and the others had participated in the film under duress as their lives were in danger and so, they were not detained further, nor were charges filed against them.
Unfortunately for Shah, he was unable to provide this sort of information and he was subsequently booked under the MCOCA by Singh. Shah, who was well-connected and knew some senior Shiv Sena leaders in Mumbai—and even senior politician L.K. Advani, among his close contacts in Delhi—was unable to wriggle out of this mess. After appealing against the verdict in the Supreme Court, however, Shah was able to get out of jail after only a year. There was no such luck for Rizvi, who was convicted and spent five years in jail. Needless to say, Shakeel got away scot free.
The rights to
Chori Chori Chupke Chupke
were later taken over by the government. Realising that the film was an underworld venture, filmgoers began to give it the cold shoulder and the film tanked horribly in the box office. Far from Rizvi’s projections of 6 crore rupees and above, the film managed to make only a paltry 25 lakh rupees. Sensing this rapidly deteriorating situation, Shakeel realised that he had one last throw of the dice left. To try and stymie the rapidly declining ticket sales, Shakeel called up a number of top English dailies to put out stories that
Chori Chori Chupke Chupke
was not
his
film, but Shah’s film. He claimed that people were just spreading rumours against him to try and make him seem like a villain trying to take over Bollywood.
Unfortunately, the horse had already bolted and no matter how securely he tried to lock the stable door, there was no escaping the fact that it was too late. Besides, the police had ample transcripts of phone conversations linking Shakeel to the film.
Chori Chori Chupke Chupke
had flopped massively, as had the don’s short stint in Bollywood.
21
‘Judge’ Dawood
T
he people of Pakistan are not only enthusiastic about Indian films and actors, but they also seem to be taking to Indian eating habits —eating vices, to be specific—like ducks to water. The highly addictive and equally carcinogenic gutkha is as popular among Pakistanis as it is among Indians. To put it very simply, it is a mixture of crushed betel nut, tobacco,
katha
(catechu, an astringent),
choona
(lime), and sweet or savoury flavourings. This mixture is packed in individual serving-size pouches and gives consumers a kick or a buzz that is thought to be far more intoxicating than tobacco. Unsurprisingly, given the composition of gutkha, it is also majorly responsible for oral cancer.
Due to the discreet nature of gutkha consumption (it can be kept in the mouth completely inconspicuously, as opposed to the more obvious vice of smoking), this blight is a rage among children and adults alike. In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, it was being smuggled illegally into Pakistan across the border and being imported to Pakistan via Dubai. Among the gutkha brands that were the most well-liked were Goa, 1000, RMD,
etc. As a result of the expenses associated with smuggling or ‘importing’ gutkha, it gradually became too expensive for the common man and the poor (who had been the biggest consumers of gutkha due to its inexpensiveness and easy availability).
According to a Pakistani commercial survey that was carried out in 2000, the illicit gutkha trade was worth 300 crore in Pakistan. Despite its increasing price, the demand for gutkha did not abate, and predictably, this burgeoning business did not go unnoticed by the expatriated Pakistani mafia in Dubai, who decided to cash in and capitalise on it. The major obstacle in their path, however, was the fact that it was impossible to obtain gutkha legally from India, as there were hardly any trade relations, and there was no way to manufacture it locally.
During this time, Anees was creating cheap imitations of well-known Indian brands to sell in Pakistan. He had kept an eye on the gutkha trade and began considering manufacturing it himself. Accordingly, he started doing a bit of research to learn more about gutkha, its manufacturing methods, and the biggest players in the gutkha field.
At the same time, back in India, two of the gutkha world’s biggest players were in the midst of a long-running feud. Jagdish Joshi of the Goa brand and Rasiklal Manikchand Dhariwal of RMD had been waging a hotly-contested business battle for some years. Ironically, it was not all that long ago that these two arch-nemeses had worked on the same team. Joshi started off as a manager and a know-how expert working for RMD in 1990. He is believed to be responsible for the meteoric rise of the brand and for taking the business to new heights.
However, he was apparently unhappy with the money he was making for the sort of work he was putting in and the results he produced. Ultimately in 1997, he parted ways with RMD
and started his own gutkha-manufacturing firm. The feud between these two gutkha barons, one which had raged for around four years, allegedly began with Joshi’s claim that he was owed a whopping sum of 70 crore rupees by Dhariwal, something the latter refuted vehemently.
When Anees heard about the Joshi-Dhariwal dispute, it brought a smile to his face; he realised that he could make the most of the situation. Joshi allegedly sought out Anees in Dubai and requested his assistance in resolving this dispute and getting for him the money he was apparently owed. And Anees is believed to have assured Joshi that he would do his bit to help and lay the feud to rest once and for all.
Incidentally, both Joshi and Dhariwal are non-resident Indians (NRIs) and in order to maintain that status, they were required to have been out of India for at least 181 days a year. In order to bring his tally up to 181 days, Dhariwal decided to go to Dubai for a while. While he was there, he was allegedly approached by Anees, who said that he wished to intervene in the dispute in the capacity of an arbitrator. The RMD
head honcho is said to have been comfortable with that arrangement—with just one proposed change in plan.
Dhariwal allegedly wanted to have the meeting in the presence of Dawood, and so, Anees decided that the meeting would take place in Karachi. A few days later, both Dhariwal and Joshi made the trip to Karachi and arrived at Dawood’s palatial residence. After lengthy discussions, deliberations, and debate, Dawood announced that he had come up with a solution that would be acceptable to all parties. He is believed to have said that Dhariwal would have to cough up 11 crore rupees in total. Of this amount, 7 crore rupees would be given to Joshi and the remaining amount to Dawood as a negotiation fee.
Just as Joshi and Dhariwal seemed to be accepting the solution, Anees saw a window of opportunity and pounced on it. Interrupting the meeting, he said that in exchange for having settled a dispute that had been raging for a long time, he wanted Joshi to provide Anees with gutkha production know-how and manufacturing machinery. Wanting a piece of the gutkha pie, Anees had long sought to set up a manufacturing plant in Pakistan, but had neither the equipment nor the expertise to do so. Finally, in Joshi, he found the perfect way to get both.
Joshi seemed extremely pleased with Anees for his intervention in the dispute and so, readily agreed to help out. Very soon, fifteen manufacturing machines and four pouch-making machines were exported to Dubai and then sent to Karachi in 2001-02. The machinery was exported from Nhava Sheva to Dubai under the name of the ‘Ali Asgar Company’ and Joshi had one of his associates, Raju Pacharia, oversee the export. Magnanimous as Joshi was feeling at the time, he also sent one of his senior employees, Biju George (aka Babu), to go to Karachi and train the workers at the manufacturing unit.
Within a few months, Anees launched the hugely successful Fire
brand of gutkha that is still very much in vogue in Pakistan. Anees and his aide Aftab Batki oversaw the entire operation and made sure everything went according to plan and that they, the top players, remained incognito. The whole operation would have remained anonymous, had it not been for what can best be described as serendipity.
In 2004, the police was trying to monitor calls between Dawood aide Salim Chiplun and Anees. At one point in the conversation, the topic changed to the purchase of some spare parts for the gutkha-making machines, and Chor Bazaar was decided upon as the best place to buy them. The spare parts were then supposed to be sent to Dubai, from where they would be sent to Karachi. Finding the whole deal quite suspicious, the police began its investigations. As part of their inquiries, the cops called in Salim Ibrahim Kashmiri (Dawood’s father-in-law) for questioning. After he was interrogated, he allegedly spilled the beans on the set-up and the arrangement with the gutkha barons, tipping off an astonished police force. Whatever next!
Subsequently, the then Commissioner of Police A.N. Roy quickly swung into action and ordered the Crime Branch to conduct deeper investigations. Joshi and Dhariwal were then charged under the MCOCA for forming a nexus with the underworld. After having such grave charges levelled against them, both businessmen were understandably reluctant to return to India. If the ignominy of being charged with working with Dawood and Anees was not bad enough, the extremely severe MCOCA would destroy their reputations and those of their companies. Their respective empires now potentially lay in ruins. And what was more, the country would be shocked to hear that two top businessmen had required the help of the underworld.
The CBI was soon handed charge of the case and began to exert pressure on Dhariwal and Joshi to return to India and face the music. When they continued to abscond, Interpol launched the dreaded red corner notice against the businessmen, Dawood and Anees. The red corner notice is an alert sounded by Interpol and circulated to all countries, and is a request for arrest of wanted persons with a view to extradition. After a number of months had passed, both Joshi and Dhariwal were left with no other option but to return to India. Joshi returned first and Dhariwal followed a little while later. Needless to say, they were immediately taken into custody. Both gutkha barons made trips to the high court to try and have the case dismissed, but their efforts were in vain.
They initially insisted that they had never been to Karachi and that they had never supplied any equipment to Anees or Dawood. However, Pacharia’s statements to the Crime Branch and the CBI contradicted their claims. Among other incriminating statements, Pacharia had spoken at length about how the duo had gone for the meeting and met the Ansaris and struck a deal with them. The case against them is still in court.