still untouched by colours of religion and a young Dawood Ibrahim was
the undisputed king of the underworld, his most trusted lieutenant was
Chhota Rajan aka Rajan Nikalje.
Like most boys lured by the quick buck that crime offers, Rajan
started life in a lower middle class chawl. Growing up in Tilak Nagar,
Chembur, a suburb in central Mumbai, Rajan teamed with a namesake,
Rajan Nair, to black-market film tickets at Sahkar Cinema, next to his
house. This was in the early seventies. From ticket touts to petty
crime, the two men built a reputation of sorts, extending their clout
from Chembur to Ghatkopar, east, and soon had to clash with Yashwant
Jadhav, a local matka king of Ghatkopar, west.
After many midnight skirmishes fought with soda water bottles and
tubelights, they decided to seek the help of Vardarajan Mudaliar alias
Varda Bhai of Matunga. The troika of Vardarajan, Haji Mastan and Karim
Lala controlled the smuggling operations in Mumbai. Together they put
the fear of death in Jadhav. Desperate, he then sought the help of a
certain Abdul Qunju.
By this time, Rajan had become very close to the don Bada Rajan.
Realising that his bete noire's clout emanated from this patronage,
Qunju, in a daring operation, got Bada Rajan eliminated in the
premises of South Mumbai's Esplanade court in 1982. Rajan was
shattered at losing his mentor and vowed retribution.
Qunju was a cricket aficionado and often managed a good-sized crowd to
come and watch him play. That was Rajan's cue.
During one such match as Qunju was in full flow, well into his 50s,
that Rajan stuck. As Qunju hit a boundary, three innocuous-looking
boys dressed in T-shirts and sneakers entered the arena on the pretext
of retrieving the ball. They walked up to Qunju with the ball, whipped
out their guns and shot him dead at point blank range. Their names
were Sanjay Raggad, Sadhu Shetty and Rajan Nikalje. The killing
catapulted Nikalje into the big league and he was formally anointed
Chhota Rajan.
THE reigning dons like Dawood Ibrahim, Arun Gawli, Alamzeb, Vardarajan
and Karim Lala immediately sat up and took note of this daring
youngster. Since Rama Naik, Bada Rajan and Dawood Ibrahim were known
to each other, Dawood asked him to join the D-Company. Rajan accepted.
Once in the gang, it didn't take him long to learn the ropes. He was
next heard of when Karim Lala's nephew Samad Khan was killed an
incident that created waves in Bombay in those days.
Khan had a girlfriend called Shilpa Jhaveri who lived in South Mumbai.
On October 4, 1982, when he stepped out of the lift of her building,
Rajan, Dawood and another colleague Anil Parab, pumped 26 bullets into
him. After this incident Rajan rose in Dawood's esteem and became one
of his closest associates.
In 1984 when Dawood fled to Dubai, he handed over the reigns of his
operations in Mumbai to Rajan who got to work consolidating Dawood's
business interest, not only in Mumbai but also across Nepal, Sri Lanka
and in European cities like London and Amsterdam. Eventually, even
Rajan had to flee from Mumbai and joined Dawood in Dubai. Once in
Dubai, they both formed a formidable pair till the late eighties.
But in the mafia, alliances are like shifting sands. Dawood realised
that he needed to clip Chhota Rajan's wings. That's when another
Chhota, Shakeel, stepped into the picture. Rajan was marginalised.
Though for long he kept his sense of unease to himself. Over the next
few months Dawood started promoting Shakeel aggressively and
completely sidelined Rajan who quietly started recruiting boys in
preparation for setting up his own outfit.
He targetted boys who were known for daredevilry paid for their legal
expenses, for their monthly expenses and their jail expenses as well
in case they got caught. At one point of time Dawood openly chided him
for adding flab to the gang but Rajan kept quiet.
Until the late eighties, gold smuggling was still considered to be the
major source of revenue for the underworld. Dawood had struck a deal
with Bhai Thakur, who held sway over the Vasai-Virar region off
Mumbai, while his clout extended right until Bassein belt. Thakur
began offloading Dawood's gold at his landing spots in Vasai-Virar
belt, while Rajan's favoured spots like Trombay, Mahul and Kacchar
Patti (behind Deonar Dumping ground) were given a go-by. Thus Rajan
despite killing the maximum number of people at the behest of Dawood
had very little share in the booty.
Yet Rajan remained loyal to Dawood to the extent that he even dared
the Shiv Sena chief, Bal Thackeray. In his speeches, Thackeray had
lambasted the police for taking stringent action against Arun Gawli.
Thackeray had referred to Gawli and Amar Naik gang as amchi muley —
'our boys'. Rajan had challenged Thackeray in an open letter which was
carried on the front page of a city tabloid: ''There is no communal
division in the D-gang and there shall never be one,''he wrote. It is
a different story that later Rajan had no qualms in expressing his
profound reverence for Thackeray.
THE split came after the enmity between Chhota Shakeel and Rajan
finally spilled in the open. On one occasion fellow gang members Sunil
Sawant alias Sautya and Guru Satam had a spat. Rajan supported Satam,
while Shakeel supported Sautya. Later when Rajan escaped from Dubai,
Sautya became the first casualty of the split. Rajan organised the
trap for Sautya and Shakeel. Shakeel did not turn up though, Sautya
was shot and his throat slit by Rajan's henchmen.
Subsequently, Rajan killed some other members of the Dawood/Shakeel
gang. His most recent killing was that of a former health minister of
Nepal, Mirza Dilshad Beg. After winning from the platform of Rashtriya
Prajatantra Party from Kapilavastu constituency in south-west
Kathmandu, Mirza allegedly became Dawood's mole. Mirza used to provide
shelters to Dawood aides in his Krishna Nagar mansion. But by
eliminating Beg, in one swift stroke, Rajan destroyed Dawood's base in
Kathmandu.
However, Rajan knew that he and Dawood would be clubbed as gangsters
and dismissed as one if he didn't play his card cleverly. Fortunately
for him, Ayodhya happened, the bomb blasts and the riots helped him in
playing the communal card cleverly. He began to project himself as a
'patriotic don' and billed his rivalry against Dawood as a fight
against a 'traitor don'. The deshbhakt vs the deshdrohi.
To prove his point further, Rajan systematically began targetting the
blasts accused. Harboured in a ship off the coast of Malaysia he
ordered the killing of blasts accused Ayub Patel in March 1998. Patel
who was shot at in Oshiwara survived the attempt. In April 1998, Salim
Kurla was gunned down in a nursing home at Andheri. Shaikh Shabbir was
shot dead in a case of mistaken identity. The bullets were meant for
Salim Tonk in May 1998, while Mohammed Jindran, another accused, was
killed in June 1998.
MUMBAI'S underworld has one unwritten rule, 'Offence is the best form
of defence'. Once Rajan recovers fully, sources say he will probably
gather his lieutenants and muster all his strength and cunningness to
hit back at his arch-rival. While Shakeel himself will no doubt
intensify his efforts to finish off Rajan and his empire.
The first step for both men will be to change their operational bases.
Rajan may shift from Malaysia or at least from Kuala Lumpur to some
other undisclosed Malaysian city. Similarly, Shakeel will shift his
base within Karachi to some other spot.
But one thing is sure, the next salvo is not too long off.
Tracing Rohit Verma's career in crime: from his beginnings as a petty
robber to his promotion as Chhota Rajan's deputy
Like politics, the mafia attracts strange bedfellows. Take the case of
Rohit Verma, an undergraduate and a petty thief, who turned into a
merciless killing machine. One of the few in the Chhota Rajan group to
turn into a contract killer and win his boss' confidence, Verma was
quite the original smooth operator, planning well and killing
ruthlessly.
For the Mumbai police, he was the phantom who left a hammer like a
sinister trademark at the site of the kill. Verma's graduation from
thief to killer happened in November 1995, when he orchestrated the
murder of East West Airlines Managing Director Thakiyuddin Wahid, at
the behest of Chhota Rajan. Flinging his hammer at Wahid's passing car
with deadly precision, Verma then caught him in a spray of bullets,
even as the driver lost control. Later, the Mumbai crime branch and
the local police were amazed to find a hammer at the scene of crime.
It was an unconventional weapon, not known to be favoured by
sharpshooters. After Wahid, Verma was involved in seven or eight
killings as part of Chhota Rajan's gang. Eventually, the hammer gave
way for the long-barrelled .45 pistol.
Verma's descent into crime began when he was 24 — a college graduate
looking for a fast buck. The first thing that struck him was robbery,
perhaps because he'd grown up in Mumbai's affluent Santa Cruz area,
gawking at moneyed Gujjus. Slowly, Verma, who loved reading pulp
fiction, spread his dragnet to other affluent areas like Khar, Juhu
and Andheri.
By then, the police stations in the Zone-VII region of Mumbai had
woken up to the existence of a smart robber called Rohit Verma, who
used a hammer in most of his operations. The Khar police arrested him
twice and he was also imprisoned for a couple of years. But it was an
encounter with Sunil Madgaonkar, alias Matya — Chhota Rajan's top-rung
lieutenant — during Verma's second stint at the Arthur Road jail in
1995 that changed the course of his life. He was 29 then. Matya, who
was the caretaker of the don's imprisoned foot soldiers, found the
right measure of grit and gumption in Verma and made him an offer,
which he accepted. Till he was killed by Chhota Shakeel's men in
Bangkok last week at the age of 34, Verma — who grew up a middle-class
boy — flirted everyday with high-profile crime.
Matya arranged for Verma's bail and soon he was out. Other than the
East West chief, Verma's victims include Prakash Sinhasane, an aide of
rival gangster Sharad Shetty, and Dev Narayan Ghosh, the owner of the
Royal Security group in Mumbai. Ghosh was killed for his refusal to
pay extortion money to Rajan. However, Verma catapulted into the big
league after the killing of Mohan Kotian in Bangalore in 1998.
Kotian, a Rajan aide, had decided to shift loyalties to Dawood
Ibrahim, and was trying to convince Verma to change sides too. Verma
heard Kotian's arguments quietly, then whipped out his favourite
pistol and emptied it on Kotian. Among the Mumbai mafiosi, Verma's
modus operandi was often discussed. The sensational killing of Mirza
Dilshad Beg in Kathmandu in 1998 was his brainchild. Beg was Dawood
Ibrahim's man in Nepal. Baig's killing (he was ambushed in a lonely
spot) was executed with a panache that the Mumbai underworld is rarely
credited with.
IS it a case of one foreign hand too many, or, if sources are to be
believed, was the Pakistani ISI and some multinational corporates
operating in Southeast Asia, instrumental in the attack on Chhota
Rajan in Bangkok last week?
''The deduction is simple,'' said a senior Intelligence officer.
''Most of the intelligence on Rajan's movement is believed to have
been acquired from satellite tracking and passed on to the ISI, who
shared it with Chhota Shakeel and his men.'' The sophisticated weapons
that were used in the attack too were procured from Pukhet by
Bangkok-based Chavalit Arunkait and handed over to key-shooters Munna
Zingada and Rashid Malbari, he added.
The motive was as old as the hills: greed.
The Rs 4,000 crore garnered through extortion and illicit business
operations in South Asia has for many years been divided between
Dawood Ibrahim, Chhota Shakeel and Chhota Rajan. Part of the income
was divided among four other splinter gangs.
Rajan's elimination would mean a whopping sum of money accruing to
Dawood and Shakeel and could also lead to their stranglehold over the
existing drug cartel operating from Afghanistan to Bangkok, including
countries like Pakistan, India, Burma, Bangladesh, Vietnam and
Thailand. Estimates have varied over the years, but the drug trade
which is routed through Mumbai could well be in the region of Rs 2,000
crores.
Rajan is believed to have been providing protection to some of the
drug syndicates operating in and around Mumbai for which he is getting
about 20 per cent of the profits. The Dawood/Shakeel combine on the
other hand, have consolidated their position at the airport and hold
high stakes in the narcotic trade, sources pointed out.
The more than Rs 1,000 crore Hindi film industry is the other area of
common interest for all three. According to an estimate, the
underworld corners about 15 per cent of the profit generated annually.
For year now, the Dubai-based gangsters had a stranglehold on
Bollywood but in the last couple of years, Rajan was trying to make
inroads as a financier-producer and his lieutenant Rohit Verma was
trying to extort large sums from successful producers, actors.
Likewise piracy of films and music is also another cash cow for the
gangsters. Rs 300 crore-odd is generated by pirating CDs and cassettes
of latest Bollywood films in Pakistan alone.
The other interest of the two gangs could be the Rs 1,000 crore
diamond trade in the city. In the last few years, Bangkok and Hong
Kong have emerged as major export centres and also cities where the
Mumbai underworld has been trying to expand operations.
The other plausible reason for the attack on Rajan is believed to be
a fallout of the killing of Mirza Dilshad Baig by Rajan-shooter at
Kathmandu in Nepal last year. Baig was considered close to Pakistan
and helped ISI built a strong base in the Himalayan Kingdom. Sources
in the underworld disclosed that Baig was killed by Rajan's henchman
Rohit Verma and three others at the behest of an Indian agent. Verma
later escaped to Bangkok after the operation. Baig's assassination had
virtually crippled ISI activities at the Himalayan kingdom since early
1998 and they were looking for an opportunity for getting back at
Rajan.
BY S.HUSSAIN ZAIDI
(The writer's an editor at e-india. com and is at present working on a
book on the Bombay bomb blasts)