Dongri to Dubai (50 page)

Additionally, while the police discovered the links between the gutkha barons and the underworld through the statements of Jamiruddin Ansari alias Jumbo, who used to handle hawala operations for Anees, it also made another major and startling discovery.

Jumbo stated that he had made a trip to actress Nagma’s flat on Carter Road in Bandra recently to deliver 10 lakh rupees to her from Anees. Jumbo insisted that Anees and Nagma were ‘close’ friends.

Nagma had made her debut in Bollywood opposite Salman Khan in
Baghi
, where she had played the role of a girl forced into prostitution. She subsequently worked with Sanjay Dutt and other Bollywood stars. The revelation of her apparent closeness with Anees, which made headlines in all the major dailies, upset her and could not have been more ill-timed.

As the revelation had come at the time of parliamentary elections and she was trying to get a ticket to contest for the Congress party, Nagma dubbed the whole disclosure as a conspiracy engineered by the Opposition and dismissed these claims as a smear attempt designed to derail her election campaign. But, just as had been the case with all other controversies, this too quietly disappeared from the media’s attention.

The footnote that no one missed was that Dawood was still ruling the roost and involved in arbitration among top business people who would approach him for redressal of their grievances instead of going to a court of law.

22

Carnival of Spies

O
ne of the most loathed Pakistani figures in India is the former cricketer, Javed Miandad.

Quoting
India Today’s
Deputy Editor Sharda Ugra, ‘If Sachin Tendulkar was like Superman for India, Miandad was like his villainous counterpart, perhaps dressed in a black uniform. He was one person whose career was built on making Indians miserable.’ His last-ball six off Chetan Sharma in the final of the 1986 edition of the Australasia Cup traumatised a generation of Indian cricket lovers almost as much as (and perhaps even more than) it thrilled their Pakistani counterparts.

In fact the hate was so widespread that Bollywood even started naming their villains after Miandad. For instance, the Dharmendra and Rati Agnihotri-starrer
Hukumat
, released in 1987 had a corrupt cop named after Javed Miandad. Every time Dharmendra bellowed his name on screen, the audience broke into thunderous applause.

India would never forgive him, as was evidenced by the reaction of spectators (laughter at his expense) at Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium during the World Cup quarter-finals in 1996 when he was run out in what would be his last international match. But what Miandad did nearly two decades later turned him into a far greater recipient of Indian resentment and scorn.

Miandad announced the wedding of his son Junaid—a student of business administration at Oxford University—to Dawood Ibrahim’s daughter Mahrukh, who was a student in London. While the engagement was a complete hush-hush affair, news that the two were to be married broke out in January 2005. When asked about it, Miandad reacted angrily, telling people to respect his privacy. However, in June 2005, it was he who confirmed the news and famously claimed that according to Muslims, marriages were made in heaven and as such, he was in no position to challenge the union.

Later, in an interview to an Indian sports magazine, Miandad said that the marriage had been mooted by his wife, Zubeen Zareen, and Dawood’s wife Mehjabeen in December 2004. And soon after, an expensive invitation card was published in a Dubai daily that read, ‘Mr and Mrs Dawood Hassan Sheikh Ibrahim announce the wedding ceremony of their daughter Mahrukh to Junaid Miandad, son of Mr and Mrs Javed Miandad, Inshahallah on 23 July 2005’.

A few days earlier, soon after the wedding was announced, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) officers had decided to activate their vigilance machinery just to ensure that they could gather enough fodder around Dawood’s attendance of the wedding. Any substantial evidence of his participation in the wedding would become part of primary ammo for the Indian government to launch an I-told-you-so campaign against Pakistan. The intelligence think tank was working overtime to try and find a way to make use of this golden opportunity. After all, it was not every day that one had information about exactly where Dawood was going to be at a particular time. The IB knew that this was a chance they could ill afford to waste and it was going to require something a little different this time. The nikah
had already been solemnised in Mecca on 9 July and the mehendi and other rituals were to be carried out in Karachi. The stage was set.

On 23 July, the Grand Hyatt in Dubai would be the venue for the
walimah
, a post-wedding feast that is hosted by the bridegroom’s father. Before the
walimah,
however, events took an interesting and strange turn. According to observers and members of Indian intelligence agencies, the post-wedding feast was one of the most closely monitored events the world had ever seen. Intelligence agencies from across the world were crawling all over the Grand Hyatt.

It seemed almost like a global confluence of all the important espionage networks. The CIA’s field agents were in position and watching events carefully, MI6 sleuths surrounded the hotel and in their midst were operatives from Mossad, RAW, IB, and a number of unidentified intelligence agents from numerous countries. As expected, the ISI was also managing protective surveillance of the proceedings.

What was most interesting was that most agents were disguised as door attendants, chauffeurs, page boys, mediapersons, and waiters. Normally, a wedding in Dubai would not attract this sort of attention, but this was no normal wedding. The CIA and its allies were interested in monitoring proceedings because in 2004, Dawood had been declared a global terrorist by the United States. MI6 was there to gather information about the possible perpetrators and planners of the 7 July 2005 blasts in London. They figured that there would definitely be a number of people present at the
walimah
who would be useful to the investigation. RAW and IB officials were there to find out more about what Dawood was plotting next, as India’s enemy number one.

The Indian government was well aware that it was not possible to extradite or get Dawood deported as he was no more Dawood Ibrahim. Pakistan had already given him a totally new identity. The only option that was left for them was to eliminate Dawood without any fingers pointing towards them. The IB had no intention of sending its own men to do the job. They also needed to ensure that they had plausible deniability if their plans led to some sort of international incident. They would need guns-for-hire. How could they outsource such an important task without causing an international embarrassment for themselves?

‘Lucky Luciano,’ said a senior officer.

When others looked at him inquisitively, he explained, ‘We have so far used Chhota Rajan’s services in so many projects where we cannot exercise our jurisdiction. Why not give him something which he would love to do? He would be willing to give his left arm for the job.’

The older officer walked towards the window and after pulling in a deep swig from his cigarette said, ‘
Sholay
will never go out of style.’

And everyone laughed at the joke.

‘But who will be our Thakur Baldev Singh?’ asked a young officer.

‘It has to be someone who is really a Baldev Singh,’ the senior officer replied, emphatically crushing the butt of his cigarette.

The two officers looked at their senior for a long time. Their eyes met and realisation dawned on them. This meant that the handler of this operation should ideally be a retired officer from the IB with proven credentials and heroic track record.

It was decided to assign the elimination of Dawood to Rajan and his shooters. It was to be remotely choreographed by a senior IB officer, who was by then retired from the service.

Word was sent to Chhota Rajan. They believed that as Rajan also had a score to settle against Dawood and was still smarting from the almost fatal attack on him in Bangkok in 2000, he would be keen to kill Dawood. Even if he did not have resources, a coup of sorts could be pulled off together.

Deputy Commissioner of Police, Detection, Crime Branch of Mumbai police, Dhananjay Kamlakar, was a young and enthusiastic officer. Driven by his recent successes of crackdown on the organised crime syndicates, he was hungry for more. Kamlakar had clearly instructed his men to ensure that no gangsters should be allowed to have a free reign. ‘They should be either behind bars or in their graves,’ he used to say.

When the Crime Branch received a tip-off that two top sharpshooters of the Chhota Rajan gang, Farid Tanasha and Vicky Malhotra, had entered India through 24 Parganas in West Bengal, they were raring to go. Both Tanasha and Malhotra were absconding for a long time and were known to be holed up in an undisclosed location in some Southeast Asian country. If they themselves had walked in, they should not be allowed to escape this time.

The Crime Branch sleuths immediately got on their trail. Tanasha and Malhotra were totally unaware of the remote surveillance on their movements by the Crime Branch sleuths. They were following instructions from their handler, who was a friend of their
seth
or master. In this context, the
seth
was Chhota Rajan.

After visiting a few of the north Indian locations, Tanasha and Malhotra were told to meet their handler in Delhi. The Crime Branch had been tapping Tanasha’s phone line after a few extortion calls he had made, recently. This latest conversation of his with someone who was clearly giving him instructions seemed extremely suspicious. And so, Kamlakar’s men kept tabs on his movements, following him like a second shadow. All the while, the IB was providing Tanasha, Malhotra, and a few other shooters with the training required for the upcoming operation.