21
‘Judge’ Dawood
The 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.
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
One 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 re
motely 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.
Dongri to Dubai - Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia Page 35