SHADOW BEHIND SUCCESS
Hard cash from real estate deals connects khadi to khaki
It all boils down to land, Mumbai's most precious commodity. The city's real estate boom of the 1980s was accompanied by the rise of the new underworld led by Dawood. The underworld has parked an estimated Rs 15,000 crore in real estate, mainly in some of the state Government's 450-odd slum redevelopment schemes. Normally, a slum redevelopment scheme on an area of one hectare or 2.5 acres generates a profit around Rs 1,000 crore.
A separate 2008 ACB investigation indicates underworld money is being routed through tax havens into the real estate market and then invested in such projects. The underworld is also known to muscle into projects by offering cash at lower-than-market rates and helping the builder clear slums and get permission. Nothing has been conclusively proved because many of the city politicians have direct or indirect partnerships in the housing projects. The builders appoint retired IPS officers by offering them attractive salaries to help with getting projects cleared using their clout in the department where they served for decades. "Retired IPS officers play a major role when it comes to driving the slum dwellers out, paving the way for housing projects on open land," says leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly, Eknath Khadse.
The investigation by the Crime Branch has revealed Chhota Shakeel controls most of the real estate market in Mumbai. Whenever there is a dispute between builders, the underworld comes into the picture. It summons the builders to Dubai for "negotiations". The underworld has divided Mumbai into territories. Gangsters do not interfere in each other's domain. "Dawood has a real estate share in south Mumbai, Arun Gawli and Ashwin Naik in central Mumbai and Chhota Rajan in eastern parts of the city," says a close aide of former gangster Gawli.
Once they achieve respectability as landlords, the gangsters hope to transform into politicians, much like Haji Mastan tried in the 1970s. Gawli, who could not go out and vote himself, fearing that the police would eliminate him in an encounter, won the 2004 Assembly elections from Chinchpokli and was an MLA till 2009, when he was arrested for extortion. When Naik was released from jail in 2008, Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) had competed with each other to make him a member. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) awarded alleged oil mafia kingpin Mohammad Ali a Lok Sabha election ticket in 2009 after he projected himself as a social worker by organising several charity events. Every Independence Day, Ali invites a senior police officer to attend the flag-hoisting ceremony at his NGO Panah. A sitting MLA is under the Crime Branch scanner for his links with Dawood. Investigators believe that he meets the fugitive don frequently on the pretext of meeting his brother, who is settled in Dubai.
Disputes abound in such a tense environment, and it was in one such spat that Mahabole's behaviour was dubbed "suspicious", according to the 2007 ACB report. That year, builder Vinod Avalani agreed to give Rs 2 crore to another builder, Krishnamilan Shukla, for a slum rehabilitation scheme housing project in lieu of a 51 per cent stake. He, however, paid Shukla only Rs 30 lakh and demanded that he sign the partnership. Shukla refused. Avalani then talked to Dawood's sister Haseena Parkar and Mahabole, separately, to pressurise Shukla to return the Rs 30 lakh through an agent Chandresh Shah. The ACB insisted that Mahabole should be investigated in detail but the Government is yet to act on the request.
Instead, after the 2007 report, he was quietly transferred to the local arms unit, then promoted as ACP and posted to the control room in the police headquarters and finally to the Azad Maidan division that controls three police stations in south Mumbai. After public pressure built up over his alleged threats to Dey, the ACP was shifted back to the local arms unit. "How did Mahabole enjoy such plum postings despite facing serious allegations? Supreme Court guidelines state that tainted police officers should be transferred immediately," says former IPS officer-turned-lawyer Y.P. Singh.
Mahabole denies threatening Dey and Akela as well as his links with the underworld. In an interview to a private TV channel, he termed his link with the scribe's murder "a frame-up by some rivals". The police itself went into overdrive to emphasise that Dey was killed by the underworld.
"Personal enmity may not be the reason behind Dey's murder. Contract killers were appointed by people hurt by Dey's stories," Commissioner of Police Arup Patnaik told the media soon after the killing. Ironically, when Patnaik took over as the commissioner of police in February this year, one of his priorities was to break the collusion between police and builders. In a meeting with senior officers, he insisted that officers above DCP rank should work as vigilance officers and look into complaints related to builders and development projects. Patnaik had to take a stand in the wake of complaints that there were no builder-related entries in police station crime diaries. Policemen usually avoided registering cases against builders because of their cordial relations with them.
TOXIC SYSTEM OF SILENCE
Politicians know of the police criminal nexus but ignore it
In September 2007, a Khar resident, Inder Chhugani, had filed a PIL in Bombay High Court alleging that nearly 300 police posts in the city were built with donations from builders. The police welfare fund rules say that the police have to take sanction from the government before accepting a donation of more than Rs 500 from a private individual. However, the rules are rarely followed. The police were left red-faced when the name of Rajkumar Basantani, one of the sponsors of the Police Gymkhana at Marine Drive, surfaced in an investment scam worth Rs 150 crore in 2005.
If land deals were the common ground between politicians, police and the mafia, cricket betting is emerging as the new arena in which the troika meets. Once dismissed as a fringe activity, betting now occupies centrestage. Betting incomes soared to Rs 90,000 crore during the recently concluded ICC World Cup. Huge cash transactions are controlled by the offshore dons. In Mumbai, the betting syndicate is run by Dawood's people.
Earlier, his close aide Zaheed Shaikh controlled the business. After Shaikh's death, Haseena Parkar is now believed to control the 5,000-strong bookies' network. Areas such as Nagpada, Mazgaon and Dongri in the city and Chembur, Jogeshwari, Borivali and Mira Road in the suburbs are the new betting hubs. Dawood has competition here too, from his erstwhile friend-turned-rival Chhota Rajan whose trusted lieutenant Santosh controls the betting syndicate from Malaysia. An officer with the Mumbai Police Crime Branch says that the bookies are now regular Page 3 fixtures and have expanded their network, even using Indian students in the UK to run the syndicate. The bookies pay around 200 students Rs 50,000 per month so they can access their bank accounts, as betting is legal in the UK.
Hours after Dey's death, Chhagan Bhujbal, a senior NCP leader, blamed it on the dreaded oil mafia that controlled the Rs 12,000 crore-plus business (petrol and diesel pilfering) in the state. Patil announced the setting up of a speedy probe into the murder. Chief Minister Chavan rejected a demand for a CBI investigation, pleading with the media to allow the Mumbai police to continue their inquiry and not press for a transfer of the case to CBI.
The police detained and questioned three killers believed to be linked to Dubai-based Chhota Shakeel-Iqbal Hatela, Mateen and Anwar-in connection with Dey's murder. The trio, who were set free on June 16, had links with a Dubai-based sandalwood smuggler and a Shakeel business associate, Jaffer Kasim. Police say their investigation has revealed that Kasim offered Dey Rs 10 lakh to kill his expose on a sandalwood smuggling racket. When Dey turned down the offer, he was silenced. Nor was he the first casualty of truth. Amjad Khan, a top police informer and a friend of Dey's, was shot dead outside the sessions court in Kala Ghoda in October 2006 after he had threatened to expose a similar nexus.
The police see a sharp contrast in the killings by the underworld of the 1980s and now. Earlier, the underworld targeted people to terrorise them into submission. Now, they target those who are seen as potential rivals. The pattern of recruitment has not changed, though. "Even today, the underworld recruits unemployed people and small-time criminals. The underworld has become powerful because it gets support from every government department," says former DGP P.S. Pasricha. "This is a city moored in the underworld and run by them with total support of the police. Everything that happens here has the hidden hand of the bhai, guaranteeing both high life and death," says eminent lawyer and BJP leader Mahesh Jethmalani. "I call it Mumbhai."
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