Generally, Pathan weddings are a riot of colour and cacophony. As the community itself is known for its boisterous and loud nature, their weddings are their showcase. Men do the Pashto Attan dance in beautiful synchronicity, dressed in Pathani suits with a waistcoat. The groom arrives in a well-decorated car, and there is lots of rich food on the menu.
That evening, most of the bride and groom’s family was bedecked in traditional costumes. The men were attired in Pathani suits, a long kameez and a salwar, with shoes. Some of them had on round Afghani caps. But there was no revelry and no cackle of laughter—even among the women at the segregated wedding venue. The only compensation for sore eyes was the sight of the ladies glittering in their best.
The bride’s father, Sayed Lakhte Pacha, seemed to be visibly anxious and tense. The nikah was supposed to be solemnized immediately after the Isha prayer, which is the fifth and last prayer of the day and is wound up usually around 8.30 p.m. It was an interminable wait for the man as the groom was nowhere in sight.
Both the qazis, who separately represented the bride and groom, had arrived and been told that the groom was on his way. The clock was ticking and the guests were getting restless. Pacha was conscious of the muffled whispers discussing his daughter Husn Bano’s missing groom. He had never expected that the auspicious occasion of his daughter’s wedding would be such a psychological ordeal for him.
Pacha still remembers vividly the day Dawood’s father, Ibrahim Havildar, and community elder Sayed Abbas Pacha, had come to him and sought his daughter’s hand for Khalid Khan. Both Ibrahim Havildar and Sayed Sahib had a considerable stature among the Pathans. When they vouched for Khalid’s integrity and unblemished credentials and pedigree, Lakhte Pacha could not refuse their proposal. The Pathans, being an ethnic tribe, generally prefer alliances within their own community. Khalid seemed to be the right match for his daughter. Lakhte Pacha wasted no time in giving his consent to Ibrahim Havildar and Sayed Sahib.
The dates were finalized and the marriage was supposed to materialize within a few weeks. However, without warning, mere days before the wedding, the venue was changed and the preparations were carried out under much secrecy. Like most Indians, the girl’s family hardly have a say in such matters. Lakhte Pacha was not completely happy, but he reluctantly agreed to a low-key celebration. Right from the number of guests, who were just a handful in number, every aspect of the marriage was organized on a conservative scale.
A couple of buses were hired and the whole baraat had quietly departed from Mumbai to a secret location in Mumbra, which is over 40 km away from Mumbai. Mumbra is considered India’s largest Muslim ghetto. At the time, of course, Mumbra was not as chaotic, disorderly or densely populated as it is today. But the idea behind having a wedding in Mumbra, which even then had a sizeable Muslim population, was to deflect attention away from the groom.
A colourful shamiana had been erected on the terrace of Rahmaniya building, situated close to the Mumbra railway station. The fully curved station was, at the time, over 115 years old, built by the British soon after the construction of the Victoria Terminus in 1853.
The history of Mumbra city is much older and has had traces of the Mughal imprint for over 400 years. However, it was renamed after the Mumbadevi Temple around 150 years ago. Earlier it was called Umra by the Mughal army, which used the Reti Bandar port as a shipbuilding yard, and the township was the entry point towards Durgadi Fort in Kalyan, known as Callian in those days.
After the communal riots in 1984, Mumbra became a hub for all Muslims from Mumbai and elsewhere who converged here because they thought it was safe and also because of the dirt-cheap real-estate prices and the easy availability of cubbyhole-sized houses.
Today, Mumbra is teeming with over 20 lakh residents, of whom over 90 per cent are Muslims. For students of social sciences, Mumbra is a classic example of Muslim ghettoization in India, which occurred much before the 2002 Gujarat riots.
At the time of his marriage to Husn Bano in 1980, Khalid was thirty years old. Most men in his community got married by the age of twenty-five, but Khalid had been busy establishing his career and there was nobody who took interest in getting him married. So, after his proposal for marriage was accepted, he was euphoric. But he was not able to revel in this feeling as fate threw a spanner in the works. Just a week before the wedding, Dawood gave him a shocker: ‘Khalid Bhai, Chandi pakdi gayi hai and usmein aap ko wanted dikhaya hai (Your silver consignment has been confiscated by customs and your name is now on their wanted list).’ Khalid was stunned by this nugget of information.
In his decade-long career in the Bombay mafia, Khalid had managed to smuggle massive amounts of gold, silver and diamonds and other contraband without ever being under the scanner of the customs or the police. He had managed to be discreet and careful so there was no dossier on him.
And, eventually, lo and behold, his name cropped up after his consignment, comprising thirty measly silver bricks, was confiscated by the DRI! The DRI, along with Mumbai Police, had declared him wanted. While other mafia members wear the ‘most wanted’ tag as an accolade and even feel that it boosts their value on the virtual mafia stock exchange, Khalid always believed in operating below the radar. He believed that one only got freedom and flexibility to operate in the smuggling business if they remained obscure and anonymous. This credo had helped him remain safe during the Emergency, when big mafia dons and their cronies were cooling their heels in various jails. When the government turned on the heat, he knew it was time to switch careers. He dabbled as a character artist in Hindi movies to tide over the Emergency era.
That evening, when Dawood dropped the bombshell, Khalid was pensive. Having the law-enforcement agencies on your heels, in hot pursuit, when you are embarking on a new personal journey was very unsettling. It would also be a setback to his myriad business activities. He could no longer fly frequently to Dubai on his business trips. It would also affect his marriage plans. It was then decided that the venue of the wedding be changed. While the Mumbai Police and customs officers would be hunting for him within the jurisdiction of Bombay city limits, they would not be able to imagine in their wildest dreams that he would be married in Mumbra, which was beyond their jurisdiction.
Thus, the nikah and reception were kept closely guarded secrets. People did not know even the name of the groom until they saw Khalid, followed by Dawood, climbing the terrace of the Rahmaniya building. Both men had decided not to travel by road and had instead opted for a local suburban train to Mumbra. The crowd would provide them good cover as they would be able to slink out of the city and make it to the wedding.
Once they reached the venue, a series of rituals—including the sehra (headdress worn by the groom), the stipulation of mahr (alimony for the bride), salam karai (where the groom bows and salaams to everyone)—were performed with relative ease and focus. The whole function went off uneventfully. Dawood was personally delighted as his father, Ibrahim, had played a pivotal role in the marriage and contributed tremendously to the safe passage and organization of the ceremony.
Over the past few months, Dawood and Khalid had forged a stronger bond, closer than brothers and as thick as thieves. Khalid was Dawood’s childhood idol and hero. For Khalid, Dawood was a confidante and a friend. Since the time they had teamed up in 1978, they had weathered many a storm and surmounted several catastrophes.
The Pathans of Mumbai had never approved of Dawood having the upper hand, whether with regard to gangland equations or smuggling. Amirzada and Alamzeb were two bloodthirsty cousins from the Pathan syndicate who had no qualms about killing anyone. They aspired to topple Dawood and gain supremacy in the underworld.
Any friend of Dawood’s was their arch-enemy and a marked man. Iqbal Natiq was the editor of the Urdu tabloid Raazdaar (The Confidant). It was published from Dongri, and Natiq, who was essentially a crime reporter, was an idealist and quite fearless. Coming from a world inhabited by dishonesty, venality, distrust, violence and treachery, Dawood
found Natiq to be the antithesis of all that he had known. Natiq embodied goodness, and Dawood was surprisingly very fond of him. Dawood would often rib him, ‘You can’t change the world with a rag of a paper. If you want change, become an elected representative.’
Dawood convinced Natiq to contest the Lok Sabha elections in 1977 from Umarkhadi. Natiq lost, of course, but there was no twinge of regret. He was completely content bringing out his little tabloid that was filled with sensational stories that even mainstream publications did not boast of. One such story became his death warrant.
Amirzada and Alamzeb used to hide their smuggled goods at the Chawla Guest House on Ibrahim Rahimtullah Road. Saeed Batla and Ayub Lala, both hooligans, ran errands for them and did their bidding. When a newly-wed couple checked into the guest house, the two men raped the bride and killed the groom. The murder remained unsolved and the police had no clue until Natiq exposed them on the front page of his newspaper. Soon other newspapers followed suit and the cops were forced to arrest Saeed and Ayub. The arrests and negative exposure seriously undermined the clout of the Pathans in the area.
After their release on bail, Saeed Batla and Ayub Lala plotted their revenge. One night, they forced Natiq to leave his house and accompany them to a lonely place. Natiq was tortured all night, stabbed multiple times by Saeed and Ayub and then dumped at the Mahim Creek. Before he died, Natiq told the police about his torture. ‘Saeed kept stabbing me and kept repeating, “Dawood ke kutte, bula usko tujhe bachane (Dawood’s dog, now dare to call him to save you).”’
Natiq succumbed to his injuries, leaving Dawood totally devastated and crushed. Dawood had never known bereavement earlier, that too of such a close friend and ally. Dawood was mourning Natiq and spending his days and weeks in melancholy until Khalid promised to hunt for Natiq’s killers.
Dawood’s grief was alleviated after Khalid chopped off Saeed’s limbs and inflicted death on Ayub. But what he did not bargain for was the intense animosity of Alamzeb and Amirzada. They knew that Dawood would be their nemesis if they didn’t catch him first. For the first time in their lives, the Pathans, who generally weren’t scared of anybody, felt a quiver of fear when they thought of Dawood and his rapid rise in the mafia rungs. They hated his guts and they hated his mad mind. He was always a step ahead of them. They had a syndicate, while he was just a newbie, but he had found a way of doing all the right things and getting all the right people on his side. The duo decided that they needed all the Pathans to unite to fight Dawood. They succeeded in rallying the Pathans for their cause, but Khalid was the only Pathan who was steadfastly loyal, resisted the pressure of the Pathan syndicate and refused to leave Dawood.
The Alamzeb–Amirzada duo carried out several attacks on Dawood and Khalid. They survived by a whisker in some cases, while in other situations they fended off their attackers with the help of their quick reflexes. Even when Dawood and Sabir were bound for hajj and had donned their ihrams (white pilgrim robe) while on their way to the holy city of Mecca, Alamzeb and Amirzada were close on their heels at the Haj House.
As they searched for the brothers at Haj House, they learnt that Dawood and Sabir had already left for the airport in a bus ferrying the hajis. The Pathans were hell-bent on killing Dawood outside the airport, even if he was in the white robe, which was considered sacred. They raced their bike like madmen in an attempt to overtake the bus and intercept it before it reached the airport. They wanted to make mincemeat of both Dawood and Sabir, at a time when they were disarmed and had no bodyguards to defend them. But those were the days when cars were few and far between and the bus managed to reach the airport before Alamzeb and Amirzada caught up with them. It was destiny that Dawood had already crossed the security gate of Santa Cruz Airport and was safely ensconced inside it, beyond the reach of death. Those were the days when this airport was also used for international air travel as Sahar International Airport came up only in 1981. Expectedly, Khalid had gone to see Dawood off. As he came out of the visitor’s gallery at Santa Cruz, he spotted the Pathans with their men and weapons. Khalid knew that that they had come with dangerous intentions. He immediately braced for a fight as he always carried a weapon.
The Pathans too had seen Khalid and realized that he was spoiling for a fight now. They knew that it was the wrong place and time to engage in a skirmish while their main target Dawood was not even present. They deferred the battle for a later date and abruptly left the scene in a haste. Khalid was disappointed about letting them escape, but in his book a true warrior never chased the deserters.
This aborted attempt on Dawood’s life became a hot topic among the mafia. Some said Dawood was fortunate while others said that he was blessed with a cat’s proverbial nine lives. They also alluded to Khalid’s courage and willingness to take the Pathans on single-handedly at the airport.
It was then that the Pathans changed their tactics. They decided to first remove Khalid from the equation so that it would be easier to eliminate Dawood. But killing Khalid was totally out of the question because the man was a force of nature and seemed invincible. Their target was only Dawood, and they had to eliminate him to finish his gang. But they knew that Khalid was a hurdle in their paths. He would always protect Dawood. So they needed Khalid out of their hair, which would enable them to net Dawood. If they could ensure a jail term for Khalid, Dawood would be a sitting duck.
The tip-off that led to the seizure of thirty silver bricks and the disclosure of Khalid’s name in the smuggling case for the first time was the Pathan’s handiwork. Working on a plan, they first squealed on a consignment and then directed the DRI towards Khalid as the kingpin. This had suddenly made the world a smaller place for Khalid and he had to keep looking around all the time.
Among other things, this affected Khalid’s wedding plans. Dawood and everyone had decided to make it a lavish affair, but with the police and customs officials looking out for him, this was not meant to be. Some advised that the marriage should be postponed for the time being as ‘section garam hai (the police is hot on their heels).’ But this was like conceding defeat to the enemies. The best answer that Dawood could give to the Pathans was to ensure that Khalid got married despite all the external pressure. He decided that nothing should hinder the event.
The marriage took place with all the Pashtun fervour. From the moment the groom entered the shamiana he dissolved into smiles and enjoyed the momentous day.
Marriage brought more sobriety and calmness into Khalid’s life. He was always an unlikely member of the mafia community. Despite having migrated to Bombay and living in the city for over a decade, the man did not allow any vice to touch him. Some say he was acting on the advice of a sage: ‘Tum us waqt tak badmashi ke badshah rahoge jab tak tum sharab na piyo aur randibaazi na karo (You will be the king of the Mumbai underworld until the time you shun wine and prostitution).’
Khalid never drank, even if there was intense pressure from his friends. While everyone around him got sozzled, he was seen sipping soft drinks. Similarly, Khalid did not indulge in womanizing and did not go to brothels either.
He had, however, little say in the matter when it came to fellow gang members. Sabir Kaskar was someone who had never wanted to be the head of the gang but, by virtue of being Dawood’s elder brother, had this position and the burden fell automatically on him. The entire Dawood–Sabir gang respected him and took his instructions seriously.
Sabir was a Casanova, a poet at heart; he neither paid attention to the business nor did he follow the unforgettable principles of the underworld. Despite having so many enemies baying for his blood, Sabir remained oblivious to impending danger and would keep exposing himself to lurking threats.
Sabir was married to a nice a girl from a respectable family. However, he wore his heart on his sleeve and would keep falling for any good-looking girl. After a while, this weakness he had for women became an obsessive addiction. When Dawood realized that the Pathans were bent on liquidating him and his brother, he decided that they wou
ld always be shepherded by bodyguards.
Dawood had understood the intensity of the danger but Sabir remained heedless of the same. Initially, Sabir would inform his men of his whereabouts but he went lax after a while. He believed that he was not answerable to anyone and refused to remain paranoid all his life. Sabir often used to quip in his poetic manner, ‘Dil ki dawa sirf daaru aur devi ke dayaar mein hain (The cure for the heart lies in wine and in the abode of women).’
Sabir’s self-assurance proved disastrous not only for him but also resulted in enormous bloodshed in Bombay.
20
The D-Gang
A total of twenty-eight bullets were pumped into Sabir Ibrahim Kaskar. Of these, nine were extracted from his body during the autopsy, while the other nineteen were found embedded in the car seat, floor mat and windows of his Fiat car on 12 February 1981. Sabir had been stealthily ambushed by Amirzada–Alamzeb and four of their minions at Servocare petrol pump in Prabhadevi in central Bombay. He was cornered when he had stopped for refuelling. At the time, Sabir had no bodyguards and was only accompanied by his latest floozy, Chitra, a prostitute from the Congress House brothel.
It was one of those nights when Sabir had sneaked out of their headquarters at Musafir Khana alone, without telling anyone. Hours later, he was found dead in his car, his head on the steering wheel and his wrists slashed to ensure that he bled to death before being hospitalized. Sabir’s easy and quick death had made his assailants euphoric.
It is probable that Khalid and Dawood would have discovered Sabir’s murder much later, but for Alamzeb and Amirzada’s doggedness to complete their unfinished business. They wanted to kill two birds with one stone. If they had waylaid Sabir, they could also try their luck with Dawood. Perhaps they could catch him unawares. When they stormed Dawood’s stronghold at Pakmodia Street, they didn’t reckon with Khalid, who had risked his life in the past to save Dawood. Khalid’s timely retaliation and presence of mind resulted in Amirzada’s injury, and he was eventually abandoned on the street by his cronies who were in a hurry to escape from the spot and save their lives.
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