Dongri to Dubai - Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia

by Hussain Zaidi

  The government and the bureaucracy set up a police outpost in the huge, sprawling hospital premises, in their typical, knee jerk style. This made little sense, as there were several gates which were operational at the time and manned by civic security personnel. Later the police checkpost gave way to a full-fledged police station known as the JJ Marg Police Station.

  The JJ Hospital shootout was a watershed moment for Dawood Ibrahim. Before this, he had never been able to proclaim his stake in the city with such impact. Dawood had cemented his reputation from far afield, and with a bang. For this was not merely one gang taking revenge on the other, or extracting its pound of flesh: it was a daring daylight attack on the system itself. The killing and injuring of policemen was unheard of in Mumbai’s chequered mafia history, and it seemed Mumbai was turning into another Sicily.

  At the celebratory party, a puffed-up Dawood went about greeting friends and well-wishers who thought they were congratulating Dawood for getting even with his brother-in-law’s killers. Dawood was celebrating on several counts, however. He knew he had not only gotten even with Arun Gawli’s gang, but that he was now calling the shots once again.

  ‘Sautya ne achha kaam kiya [Sautya has done a good job]’, Dawood announced loudly, as the conversation inevitably veered towards the JJ Hospital shootout. Ever since their bloody victory, Dawood had been openly expressing his admiration of Sautya, who had personally led the JJ Hospital shootout. Subhash Singh Thakur, Manish Lala, and Chhota Shakeel, who had also contributed significantly, got equal footage.

  One man sat quietly in the midst of all the fuss. By now, everybody knew that for once, the shootout was not the handiwork of Chhota Rajan. Earlier, Dawood would always stake claim for Rajan’s work, giving his stamp of approval. This had suited Rajan perfectly at that time, as he took it as a compliment.

  But today Rajan had discreetly withdrawn, preferring to drink alone. He felt humiliated because he had not figured anywhere in this big triumph. When he saw Dawood gushing over the ‘JJ team’, he seethed with frustration. He felt the operation was not a success, in real terms. So much firepower and human resources had been used for the operation and in the end only one gangster, Shailesh Haldankar, had been killed, while Bipin Shere had not been taken down.

  Rajan felt it was ironic that his boss was acknowledging the bravery of these stupid men who had, to his mind, botched the entire operation. Rajan drank on, brooding, until he could take it no more and walked out of the party. But he decided to let this one go. He consoled himself with the thought of all those times Dawood had been kind and compassionate to him, lauding his enterprise and giving him unrestricted rights over his business and gang operations. Dawood had never humiliated him, insulted him, or rebuked him in public.

  Meanwhile, the JJ Hospital celebration party continued unabated. The shootout was an excuse. Everybody wanted to hitch a ride on the Dawood bandwagon. He was growing bigger and bigger. Some ‘friend’ or ‘well-wisher’ organised a party every second day, as many businessmen had already realised the value of having Dawood Ibrahim as their ally.

  Soon, the events of September were forgotten. Months passed and December came around, time for another round of celebrations. Dawood’s sycophants were known to organise several parties to celebrate the don’s birthday on 31 December. Like most dons, Dawood who personally never attached much importance to his birthday, made it a point to see how his friends celebrated his birthday—whether they cared to wish him, send him flowers and gifts, and throw parties. He, of course, never organised any parties. For a don, he was rather shy about celebrations of this nature. But among the mafia, a note is made of all the parties thrown in Big D’s honour. The rival gangs also kept watch over these parties, making notes of those who attended and those who did not. But very rarely would Dawood himself attend other parties.

  But even as grand plans to celebrate Dawood’s birthday mounted, another political development which had been brewing for a while culminated in what Indian history was to remember as one of its blackest of black days: a day when India ceased to be an inclusive, pluralistic nation. On 6 December 1992, a mob of Hindu militants tore down a mosque in Ayodhya and in the process rent apart the communal fabric of the country.

  On 6 December, a mob of 70, 000 comprising members of right wing political parties and believers converged around the Babri Masjid, a disputed structure since 1853. Hindus believed that this was actually the birthplace of Lord Ram and that a temple had once existed here, later demolished by Mughal emperor Babar’s commander, Mir Baqi. A masjid was built on the spot and it was named Babri Masjid.

  After 1983, the Sangh Parivar (the Rashtriya Seva Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad) realised that Ayodhya was a political goldmine. By October 1992, Lal Krishna Advani’s rath yatra (a motorised chariot), which had been mobilising support for the construction of the Ram mandir in the disputed site, had gathered sufficient steam. When it was clear that their plans included the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Advani’s rath yatra was stopped midway in Samastipur in Bihar on 23 October 1992. The next day the Sangh Parivar announced a Bharat Bandh.

  Two months later on 6 December 1992, Advani finally reached his target. The kar sevaks (volunteer to a religious cause) eventually brought down the structure and the entire world saw the footage of this live on television: the falling domes of the masjid and the kar sevaks scrambling to climb atop the masjid and dancing with joy after the demolition. The communal riots post-Babri Masjid demolition left over 2,000 people dead across the country and a legacy of deeply-entrenched communal hatred.

  This caused much pain and anguish among Muslims across the country and sparked nationwide communal riots. If northern India was shaken, the tremors were felt as far as Mumbai; Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena owned up to the destruction of the Babri Masjid.

  In Mumbai, the riots which were triggered due to the frenzied, impulsive response of the Muslims, caused more loss of lives and property to Muslims than the Hindus. It seemed like the Hindu groups had anticipated the Muslim reaction and were prepared for the onslaught. So when the Muslim youth came out on the streets and started stone pelting and violent protests, the Hindus gave it back to them in full measure. Thus the violence escalated and Mumbai witnessed its worst ever communal carnage.

  Muslims in Mumbai became vulnerable in the December-January communal riots after the Babri Masjid demolition. They expected the police force to play a fair and judicious role, but the police were mute spectators as the mob went berserk. Later, the Sri Krishna Commission revealed the unfair and partisan role of the police in the Mumbai riots. When they witnessed the police bias and the government’s callousness in handling the riots, even the most optimistic of Muslims found their belief in a pluralistic, secular India shattered. Even in upmarket areas like Bandra, Muslim homes were marked for an attack with a chalk mark. The general feeling was of insecurity and fear. Muslim youth found that they were not only oppressed by the system, but felt widely alienated and isolated. This feeling generated a widespread antagonism among them and a sub-section began to seek out revenge.

  The climate was ripe for Pakistan’s ISI intervention, always awaiting just such an occasion. They saw this as the perfect opportunity to sow the seeds of terrorism in India.

  The ISI generals activated all their handlers and gave them instructions to launch a massive attack on India. The brief was clear: unlike the Kashmir operations where they had followed the practice of ‘prick and bleed’, this time it would be a ‘deep incision’ into the psyche of the country.

  The lack of effective and charismatic leaders always forced the Muslim youth to choose the wrong role models. They usually made their choices looking for somebody who could buck the system. Earlier they had looked at Haji Mastan as their messiah, who was later replaced by Dawood Ibrahim. Muslims from south Mumbai wanted Dawood, with his mighty arsenal, to settle scores with the Shiv Sena, who had gone on a rampage.
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br />   The ISI, meanwhile, called together Dawood Ibrahim, Anees Ibrahim, Mohammad Dossa, Tiger Memon, Tahir Merchant, and several other Indian Muslim dons based in Dubai and Europe. They managed to bring the rival Indian dons together under the aegis of their operation of ‘tehreeke-inteqaam’ (the initiative of revenge). In fact, this was the first ever ISI operation where help was also sought from further afield; other international terrorist groups, including the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, Afghan Mujahideen, and several Dubai-based financiers were enlisted.

  Several conspiracy meetings and brainstorming sessions were held across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, London, Karachi, and other cities. The ISI wanted to strike at once so that their planned terrorist attack would be connected to the Babri Masjid demolition. They also wanted to use Mumbai Muslim youth for the task so that the operation could not be traced back to Pakistan.

  Tiger Memon and Mohammad Dossa were chosen to spearhead the whole operation. Tiger Memon was a smuggler who was born and bred in Mumbai. His task was to induct Muslim youth from Mumbai, get them to Pakistan, and train them in handling explosives and sophisticated weapons. Memon knew that he would not be able to execute the operation without the blessings of Dawood Ibrahim; at the earlier meetings Dawood had not really promised anything. This resulted in a further flurry of meetings.

  Chhota Rajan, who was even otherwise sidelined, was surprised by the number of endless meetings Dawood was attending, with both known and unknown quantities. Rajan brooded over the fact that Dawood remained closeted in meetings for hours. Moreover, Shakeel always attended these meetings but Rajan was never asked to join them in the conference room.

  Finally, Dawood acceded to Tiger Memon’s request for logistical support for the operation. A month after the Babri demolition, thirty young Indian men were flown into Pakistan and trained in warfare, using sophisticated guns and making RDX bombs. They were brought to Dubai and sworn to secrecy. All the while they were brainwashed into jihad; they were shown videos of Muslim women gangraped in Surat during the riots in Gujarat. The young men promised to retaliate by launching a massive attack on Mumbai.

  Memon, in the meanwhile, managed to smuggle over eight tons of RDX and thousands of grenades and Kalashnikov rifles from the coast of Raigad, Maharashtra, all into Bombay, in February 1993. The scene was set.

  On 12 March 1993, a series of ten bomb explosions disrupted the uneasy calm of Bombay. The city, wrecked by bloodshed, firings, and communal divide, was just returning to normalcy after two months of relative quiet. The explosions began at 1: 28 pm at the Bombay Stock Exchange Building, ripped apart the Air India Tower, the grain market at Masjid Bunder, Plaza Cinema and Sena Bhavan at Dadar, Passport Office at Worli, and five star hotels in Bandra and Santa Cruz. Grenades were also hurled at the airport and the Mahim Fishermen’s Colony.

  Long before 11 September 2001, the Bombay attack was one of the most audacious attacks of its kind. The 12th March attack on Bombay was regarded as the biggest terrorist act on any city in the world at the time. While all such terrorist attacks are usually the handiwork of highly trained and seasoned men, police investigations revealed, ironically, that this attack was carried out by a handful of young men who were neither religious bigots nor highly motivated. The entire operation, which had resulted in 257 deaths and injured 700 people, was the result of indiscreetly and hurriedly placed bombs, planted more out of fear of Tiger Memon than out of any religious zeal.

  On the morning of 12 March, hours before his men had began planting the bombs, Tiger Memon and his entire family—including his old parents, four brothers and their wives—left the country. The Bombay police were already on his trail. They had gotten lucky and had several breakthroughs in the first few hours after the blasts. This included a clumsily abandoned Maruti van at Worli and a carelessly parked scooter at Dadar. The van belonged to Tiger Memon’s sister-in-law Rubina and the scooter belonged to his brother, Yaqub Memon.

  While most of the perpetrators of the blasts and their accomplices were arrested, some of them who had managed to reach Pakistan, including the Memon clan, managed to evade the law. Yet, Deputy Commissioner of Police, traffic, Rakesh Maria, who had additional charge of Zone IV, was assigned the investigation and managed to gather evidence and arrest over 200 people. He chargesheeted them under the stringent Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) Act.

  Meanwhile, the entire country blamed Dawood Ibrahim for the blasts. Everybody was convinced that it was he alone who had planned the attack. Only he had the power to bring Bombay to its knees like this.

  When the Indian government clamoured for Dawood’s deportation from Dubai and began exerting pressure on the United Arab Emirates government to launch a crackdown on the fugitive don, India’s most powerful gangster was actually worried for a moment. For, the pressure was so considerable that the UAE’s mighty sheikhs were shaken by it.

  Barring its neighbours, the Indian government had always enjoyed smooth and harmonious relations with countries across the globe. The respect that the country had earned was by its sheer goodwill and over eagerness to help everyone; apart from China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, India had never overly antagonised other countries. The Middle Eastern countries, which were at loggerheads with each other, had always been friendly with India.

  However India, as usual, failed to capitalise on its clout. Post the 1993 blasts, a wave of sympathy for India had swept across the world. If India wished, she could have used the opportunity to bring Pakistan to its knees and get Dawood back to the country. But the opportunity was frittered away. The shrewd, wily rulers of UAE realised the pressure from India was weakening and immediately announced that Dawood was not on their soil. This was a baseless claim but the Indian establishment never pursued it aggressively, as reported widely in the media at the time.

  However, India’s outspoken media did not spare the government and its half-hearted effort. They launched a massive effort to expose Dawood Ibrahim. While the English media published reams of newsprint detailing the don’s vast empire in Dubai and the Gulf region, the local Marathi press branded him as a ’traitor’—a deshdrohi.

  But those who knew Dawood very well were certain that even though he had the resources to do orchestrate something of this scale, the Mumbai blasts were not his brainchild. His best friends were Hindus and he was not known as a religiously motivated person. Dawood Ibrahim’s core group, which included several of his non-Muslim aides like Sunil Sawant, Manish Lala, Anil Parab, and above all Chhota Rajan, were sure that Dawood was not involved in the blasts.

  In fact Dawood’s close allies know that upstaging and exiling Tiger Memon from Mumbai was one of the don’s masterstrokes. Memon was fast growing as a smuggler in the city, and clients in the Middle East had started to deal with him. Dawood never entertained a rival’s growth and increasing influence lightly. But Memon had never even thought of Dawood as competition, instead actually wanting to be in his good books, so it was not easy to upstage him or stall his growth with direct intervention.

  However, if Tiger Memon got entangled with the law in a messy manner, he would have to escape from the country and abandon all operations. He would thus not be able to expand his influence and Dawood could reign supreme. So, when the proposal for leading the attack and blasts in Mumbai came up, Dawood had cleverly asked the ISI to make Tiger Memon the hero. Memon bit the bait and was ousted from the city, and Dawood managed to outmanoeuvre his competitors without shedding a single drop of blood. This is why Indian agencies could never pin the whole operation onto Dawood and named Tiger Memon as the key accused and perpetrator.

  The public was not fully convinced, however. And when Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray wrote scathing editorials calling Dawood a ‘deshdroshi’ and dubbed Hindu dons like Arun Gawli and Amar Naik ‘Aamchi muley’ or our Maharashtrian boys, Chhota Rajan rose to Dawood’s defence.

  Rajan, also a Maharashtrian, was aware of the exte
nt of Dawood’s involvements in the blasts. He decided to prove his loyalty to his friend and boss. Rajan began calling up and sending faxes to newspaper offices, defending Dawood. He labelled the accusations of Dawood’s involvements in the blasts as flimsy and religiously motivated.

  In fact, Rajan went a step further and took on Bal Thackeray. He began sending faxes to English newspapers, where he wrote in Marathi that Thackeray should mind his business and focus on politics and stop commenting on the business of the underworld. Rajan went on to proclaim that Dawood was not a deshdrohi and that he did not need a certificate from Thackeray.

  8

  Surrender Offer

  The events of 12 March 1993 had left the country, its citizens, and the government shell-shocked. They were not the only ones rattled; Dawood Ibrahim was seriously shaken by the events which unfolded on that fateful day. However, there is no real evidence to suggest why he was in that state of mind. His friends and associates believe that when he provided logistical support for Pakistan’s ISI to smuggle in the RDX via the long coast of Maharashtra, he did not realise the magnitude of the act of terror they were to perpetrate on Indian soil, six years after he left.

  Dawood believed that the plan was to conduct one of those ‘prick and bleed’ operations that had almost become an ISI calling card in the Kashmir region, where a small number of casualties and minimal infrastructural damage was regularly witnessed. The all-seeing and all-knowing don who sat atop his throne in the White Castle had no clue, say those close to him, that this operation would turn out to be the most heinous terror attacks that had ever been orchestrated anywhere in the world, until then.