Dongri to Dubai - Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia

by Hussain Zaidi

  Mastan, who had dreams of owning a bungalow and a fleet of foreign cars, now finally saw them take shape. He had a palatial house in Malabar Hill and several cars at his disposal. After marrying Sabiha Bi from Madras, Mastan had three daughters, Kamarunissa, Mehrunissa, and Shamshad.

  On the business front, Mastan was now known to be the most affluent don in the city, and was growing from strength to strength. He began to use other ports like Chembur, Versova, and the Thane creek. And by the early seventies, Varda in central Bombay, Haji Mastan in the south and west, and the final member of their triumvirate, a Pathan called Karim Lala who provided the muscle, formed the most formidable alliance of smugglers and dons in Bombay. When they were mentioned together, they inspired awe in the youth and other small or aspiring dons.

  6

  Pathan Power

  No one, not even his family, knew exactly when Karim Lala arrived in Bombay. What is known is that it was approximately in the thirties. Mumbai was known even then for its cosmopolitan identity and inclusive character. Nepalese, Burmese, Ceylonese, and Kabuliwallahs (Pathans) visited the city and made it their home because they saw more opportunities for business and personal advancement in Bombay than they ever saw in cities like Kabul, Kathmandu, or Colombo.

  Abdul Karim Khan alias Karim Lala, a towering Pathan—almost 7 feet tall— came to Bombay from Peshawar with dreams in his eyes. Unlike his mentor Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, whom he followed into the country, he was not drawn to India’s freedom struggle. Despite being a bonafide member of the Pakhtoon Jirga-e Hind, he did not participate in the movement. Instead, he was drawn to the city of Bombay—a city of myriad hues, which was very different from his motherland, with its mountains and wilderness. He fell in love with the city and decided to call it his own.

  Karim Khan, like several others, had come to Bombay in search of fortune. He wanted to achieve here what he could not achieve in Peshawar. He rented a place in south Bombay, in Baida Gully near Grant Road station. Uneducated and unskilled, Karim Khan decided to be self-employed, as he could not think of any other way to earn a decent living.

  He started off by establishing a gambling den — euphemistically known as a ‘social club’—on the street he lived in. The club was frequented by all kinds of people—paupers and those with deep pockets; those who could afford to lose money and those who struggled to survive; daily wage labourers and middle-class men. Heavy losers borrowed money from Khan or his men to buy groceries or other necessities. When Khan noticed that this was becoming a trend, he decided to put an end to it by asking the borrowers to pay him interest on the 10th of every month for the borrowed sum. This discouraged some but others remained undaunted. Khan noticed that his cash box swelled on the tenth of every month, despite the interest, and encouraged by this, he decided to become a moneylender or lala. Thus, Karim Khan came to be known as Karim ‘Lala’.

  Karim Lala was not the only Pathan who lent money and lived off the interest. His brother, Abdul Rahim Khan alias Rahim Lala, also ran a social club near Jail Road in Dongri. There were other Pathans who did not own gambling dens but were affluent enough to lend money. Life started looking up for the sizeable Pathan community in the city.

  Over a period of time, Karim Lala’s gambling den became a hotspot for crime. Violence, brawls, and mugging became routine. This brought him into contact with the local police and subsequently with Crime Branch officials. But Karim Lala managed to bribe his way out of legal entanglements. Slowly and gradually he began to grow in stature and clout. Some began to refer to him in grander terms as Karim Dada. Following their tribal tradition the Pathans, who had begun to crowd around Karim Lala, looked up to him as their leader. In return, he would bail them out of tricky situations, from time to time involving himself in their concerns.

  Soon Karim Lala became a household name in south Bombay and unwittingly became part of what is referred to as matter patana or kholi khali karana. Matter patana meant resolving an ongoing dispute by becoming an arbitrator between the two parties, while kholi khali karana meant evicting the occupant of a house by force. This informal arbitration, truth be told, was much smoother than the court cases and resultant verdicts were treated with more respect than those that had the seal of the court.

  Karim Lala developed a formidable reputation for himself as a mediator. It started off with his getting involved in the concerns of friends and their own friends, but gradually the Pathan became the choicest arbiter in any kind of dispute in south Bombay. Soon, he realised he was raking in good money because of this weekly arbitration, which took place on the terrace of his building on Sundays.

  At this point, his cronies like Murad Khan and Yaqub Khan decided to diversify into eviction. South Bombay had the maximum number of houses on the pagdi system, in those days. Pagdi technically means turban, but in this context it means that the tenant has placed his pagdi or honour in the hands of the owner, and which he will get back once he vacates the house. In the business, this pagdi system meant that once an individual gave the money to the owner, he or she would have complete right over the property. In the sixties and seventies, even 500 sq feet tenements were given out for a nominal amount of 5,000 to 10,000 rupees. At times, the rooms were given out for 9 to 99 years in a lease as low as 20,000 rupees. So when after a couple of years, the seller regretted giving out the room for such a meagre amount, he expected more money, which the occupant might not agree to pay, later in the day. There were also several instances when the lease period was completed, but the occupant was not budging or shelling out more money. In cases like these, the landlord or the tenant made use of the services of Karim Lala and his minions.

  Karim Lala realised that he could make more money out of this than through lending money, waiting for the 10th of every month. As this new business thrived, he took on such a fearsome aura that several properties were evicted just by mention of his name. No sooner did the landlord say, ‘Ab toh Lala ko bulana padega [now Lala needs to be called]’ , the occupant, whether in the right or wrong, would vacate the house.

  It was now several years after Indian Independence and the Pathans had now settled in comfortably. Khan had become the uncrowned leader of the Pathans in the city. His exact age was not known, but in the early fifties, the Pathans threw a huge party for his fiftieth birthday.

  Karim Lala had now graduated from starched Pathani suits to white safari suits. He had a flamboyant lifestyle. He sported dark glasses and was almost always seen smoking expensive cigars and pipes. On his 50th birthday, one of his sycophants gifted him an expensive walking stick. Initially, Karim Lala had frowned at the gift saying he was still strong and fit enough to walk around without the help of a stick. But when several of his aides suggested this would only add to the strength of his personality, Karim Lala readily agreed. After this, he could be seen walking with his fancy new present at all major gatherings.

  The stick began to accompany the man everywhere. If he went to the mosque and got up for ablutions, leaving the stick behind, even if the mosque got crammed and crowded, no one would dare to move the stick aside or occupy Karim Lala’s prayer spot. Likewise, in any social gathering, if he made a trip to the washroom and left his stick behind, resting on a sofa, no one would dare to come and sit on the sofa. There was much talk of the stick and the awe it commanded amongst ordinary mortals. Remarkably, Karim Lala enjoyed this new height of power without having entailed bloodshed or effort.

  Landlords like Chaman Singh Mewawala and Abdul Qureishi who had become regulars in Lala’s baithaks (gatherings) realised that every time they contracted Lala for an eviction, they had to dole out a sizeable amount to him and his goons. So, in order to cut down on expenses, they sought to use solely the symbol of his power and pay a fraction of what they had to otherwise pay him.

  Between the two of them they devised a plan to obtain his consent so that he would not know the actual reason behind the proposal. Catching him when he w
as in a good mood one morning, they began. As Lala had been running into rough weather with the cops and CID and they were making a file on him, they suggested he should abstain from physically leading eviction assaults and even avoid sending his Man Fridays.

  ‘Phir kholi kaisa khali karega [then how will the eviction happen]?’Lala asked with sincere concern. ‘Hamari khopdi mein ek kamaal ka idea hain, jisse saanp bhi mar jayega aur lathi bhi nahin tootega [we have the perfect strategy in place, which will ensure that the snake will be killed and the rod will not be broken],’ the landlords replied. Lala looked at them incredulously.

  Whenever they wanted to evict a house, Lala’s men now left only his stick at the desired site, as an ominous symbol. It always seemed to work, they found. Many tenants would almost immediately evict the house and leave the fear-inspiring stick behind.

  Nobody before this had commanded such clout. This not only added to Lala’s fearsome reputation but also caught the attention of Haji Mastan. Mastan had always wanted a man who could pull off tricky things for him without violence. He sent a message to Karim Lala for a meeting. Karim Lala had heard a lot about Mastan but had never met him earlier.

  They both met during Friday prayers at Grant Road mosque and proceeded to Taher Manzil, Karim Lala’s Baida Gully residence for lunch. For religious Muslims, lunch after Friday prayers should be sumptuous and rich. Karim Lala had laid down a scrumptious feast for Mastan. Both of them immediately struck a rapport over the meal, laughing and talking like old friends. After the meal, it was time to move to weightier issues.

  ‘Khan, saab,’ Mastan said, addressing Karim Lala, ‘it has been great talking to you like friends, but now, I have a business proposition for you.’ Karim Lala had been waiting for just such an opening, and he leaned forward, interested. ‘Of course, Mastan bhai, tell me. What do you have in mind?’ he asked.

  Mastan slowly sipped some water before he started to talk, ‘As you know, I have quite a lucrative business going at the docks. But I am in need of some manpower, people who know what they are doing. I was wondering if you would be interested in providing me with men.’ Karim Lala’s eyes gleamed. ‘You intrigue me, Mastan bhai. But tell me, what would my men have to do?’ he enquired.

  Mastan replied, ‘Nothing too dangerous. I have a lot of goods coming in at the docks at Bombay Port Trust. They need to be unloaded quickly and efficiently, taken and stored in a warehouse, and then, transported out. Your men will have to give their protection to me and my men, for the goods at the docks and the warehouses, until they are sold off. That’s all.’ Mastan knew that if he pitched it like this, the up and coming Karim Lala would be assured that there would not be much danger involved.

  Karim Lala sat back and folded his arms across his chest, brow furrowed as he thought about Mastan’s proposition. After a minute, he asked, ‘I see. Will there be any violence involved?’

  Mastan smiled. He knew he had Karim Lala hooked. ‘Khan saab, if your men are around, there isn’t a soul who will dare intrude or interrupt us. So there won’t really be much violence involved.’

  ‘Well then, it sounds pretty doable. But what do I get out of this, Mastan bhai?’

  ‘Well, Khan saab, I can’t promise you a fixed cut, but our shares will depend upon the value of the goods that we unload. So, how about we decide on our shares on a consignment basis?’

  Mastan knew this was the tricky part, but he knew, almost as a certainty, that in the end Karim would not be able to resist.

  A short silence prevailed, in which Mastan watched the man sitting across him think furiously. Finally, Karim Lala released a deep breath, looked up, and, with a smile, offered his hand. Mastan took it, and shook hands. This sealed one of the deadliest deals of the time in the Bombay underworld, Mastan would be the brains, and Karim Lala would provide the brawns. Finally, Karim Lala had skyrocketed into the big league.

  This newfound alliance presented a headache for the cops. Mastan was a well-connected smuggler and Karim Lala, a ruthless muscleman: a most unholy alliance. As Mastan’s political connections were well oiled, they knew they could not touch him; they decided to try to clip Lala’s wings.

  In a very concerted attempt, cops unleashed a crackdown on Karim Lala and his brother Rahim’s gambling dens. At times their hotel managers were picked up, detained and subjected to relentless questioning. Baida Gully began to see frequent visits from the police. Strangely, these police officers came bragging about what they could do to Karim Lala because of his involvement in mediation and eviction deals. But after all their histrionics and hard talk, they left tamely, pockets full of bakshish (bribe). Once in a while Karim Lala was also summoned to the CID office. Threats were issued that he would be produced in front of the then Deputy Commissioner of Police Huzur Ahmed Khan, but the moment he put his hands in his pocket and brought out wads of notes, they became as docile as donation seekers from charity organisations.

  The only policeman the Karim Lala respected was Head Constable, Havaldar Ibrahim Kaskar. Ibrahim had never ever asked him for money and never displayed any sort of deference towards him. In fact, despite his being a constable, Ibrahim chose to admonish him in the strongest terms. They had known each other for several years and Ibrahim exhorted him to close down his gambling dens and his business of lending money on interest, as both businesses were considered haram in Islam and thus the money earned qualified as unlawful and ill-gotten.

  Karim Lala was astonished at Ibrahim’s devoutness and bluntness in the face of a notorious don. Ibrahim was a pauper and was struggling to make both ends meet, yet he did not want to accept money from him and preferred to survive on a meagre salary of 75 rupees a month. Karim Lala had never felt such a sense of respect for anyone else in his life—he almost venerated Ibrahim. Despite the head constable being younger to him by a decade or more, Lala began to call him Ibrahim Bhai.

  7

  The Original Don: Baashu

  The three men lurking near the state-run JJ Hospital in Teli Mohalla looked so menacing that passers-by instinctively crossed the road to avoid them. Khalid Pehelwan, Raheem Pehelwan, and Lal Khan were massively built by Indian standards. They had earned the title ‘Pehelwan’, or wrestler, by toiling at their boss’ gym. Their effort showed in the biceps that bulged under their taut skin.

  While the trio flexed their muscles and others scurried past, a gleaming black Mercedes Benz glided into view; the kind that was later popularised as the customary ride of innumerable reel dons. The gritty neighbourhood of Teli Mohalla seemed transformed by the moment. In the early seventies, people saw few Mercs cruise the streets of Bombay. They were beyond the means of all but a handful of people, and Ahmed Khan alias Don or Baashu Dada belonged to that exclusive club. He was the vain owner of not one, but two of these expensive status symbols.

  When the car pulled in close to his office, Baashu Dada’s minions stood to attention. According to his closest aides, Baashu Dada was unlettered and incapable of even signing his own name. Despite this, he wielded absolute power over his fiefdom of Dongri in the seventies.

  The don stepped out, clad in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, his well-built frame matching those of his acolytes. Baashu Dada never wore full-sleeved shirts. He liked to show off his body builder’s biceps and sinewy forearms. He wanted to show that he was as strong as he was shrewd.

  Today, as Baashu Dada walked up to his henchmen, he threw down the gauntlet at once. ‘What kind of fucking pehelwans are you?’ he thundered. ‘Can you do a hundred push-ups without a break?’

  Khalid and Raheem’s ability had never been questioned with such contempt and that too by Baashu Dada. They had little choice but to prove themselves.

  ‘Of course, I can do a 100 dips,’ Rahim replied, trying to salvage his wounded pride.

  ‘Go on, do it!’ Baashu egged him on, ‘Khalid, you join him too!’

  Teli Mohalla was abuzz. A small crowd g
athered to watch the two wrestlers in their exertions. Both took up their positions, palms outstretched, hips raised, and legs extended, only their toes touching the ground.

  The countdown began: one… two… three… four… five… .

  Baashu Dada joined the battle of the biceps, slipping into position easily. The crowd’s excitement went up a notch.

  By the twentieth push-up, Khalid and Raheem were panting. But Baashu Dada, who had been quietly keeping pace, showed no signs of flagging. When they crossed seventy, the going got even tougher. With each passing number, Rahim found it more and more difficult to rise. When he hit eighty-seven, he could not do it anymore. He flopped to the ground, his face kissing the dirt.

  Khalid managed three more dips. He was determined not to collapse in a heap like Rahim. He also did not want to lose when he was so close. Unable to rise and too spent to dip again, he suddenly froze, mid-position, sweat pouring from his creased forehead. His heavyset body trembled with the effort.

  By now, Baashu Dada had become the centre of attention. He had cruised past ninety and was well on his way to a century. But instead of stopping at 100, he continued with astonishing speed. His breathing got heavy when he crossed 110, but he never once slowed down. When he finally stopped at 120, his T-shirt was drenched with sweat, but he rose to his feet and gave both his bodyguards a big smile. He had proven his point. He did not exchange any words, but ordered three glasses of badam sherbet.

  Badam sherbet (a sweet, refreshing concoction made of milk and almonds) was the favourite drink of Muslim bodybuilders of yesteryears. For men like Khalid and Raheem, it symbolised a reward for their hard labour.