A lone Kalia was no match for a team of policemen. Sharma’s men kept firing in his direction while Sharma crawled up to Kalia from behind his cover. He jumped on Kalia in a quick motion and kicked him down to his knees. Kalia dropped to the ground but he would not give up. Kalia rolled over, turning to fire at Sharma. Sharma already had a gun pointed at Kalia and he pulled the trigger. The other officers closed in and sprayed Mumbai’s most-wanted gangster with a series of bullets. Sadiq Kalia was finally dead. The man who had shaken the city with his gruesome acts of violence had finally been overpowered.

  Sadiq Kalia’s death went on to become one of the most famous encounters helmed by Pradeep Sharma and Daya Nayak together. However, Daya—who sustained a bullet injury in his thigh—was allowed to steal the limelight and hailed for his tenacity.

  HITMAN 7

  Boyhood to Bhaidom

  Mumbai’s Moharram

  Barely five kilometres from southern Mumbai’s elite business district lies Mohammed Ali Road, named after Mohammad Ali Jouhar who was an activist, scholar, journalist, poet and one of the presidents of the Indian National Congress for a short while in the early 1920s. Years later, no trace of Mohammed Ali’s illustrious background or his vision can be seen anywhere in the vicinity of the Muslim borough.

  The place is an urban nightmare, despite the intervention of a huge flyover called the J J Flyover that snakes its way through the southern tip of Mohammad Ali Road, beginning from the back of Crawford Market and winding its way 2.2 kms away to the state-run J J Hospital. It skips all the important landmarks of Mohammad Ali Road: J J Square, Iranian Masjid, Moghul Masjid, enclaves like Bohri Mohalla, the wonderful stalls and shops that sell henna, ittar, scarves, surmai, jewellery, lingerie, accessories, shoes, toys, books, Minara Masjid and Crawford Market junction. The flyover is so high that you will not even get a whiff of the food and delicacies served in the various bylanes of Mohammad Ali Road.

  In that particular year, 1998, on May 6, there was no J J Flyover to mar the view of Mohammad Ali Road. It was the penultimate day of Muharram—Ashura. And Ashura is the day when Shia Muslims from all over Mumbai and its neighbouring districts descend to the east of J J Hospital all the way up to Imam Husain Chowk near Sandhurst Road railway station. It is a day to mourn Imam Hussain, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad, killed barbarically by a tyrannical ruler, Yazid, in the year 680 ad in Karbala, which is now in modern Iraq.

  On that day, thousands of Shia Muslims had converged near J J Square, Dongri, Noor Baug, Mughal Masjid and its surrounding roads and were thumping their chests so hard that it felt like a thousand drums were beating as one for their beloved Imam Hussain in a show of grief and solidarity. Meanwhile, youngsters lashed themselves with chains and sharp knives that were freshly-sharpened.

  The atmosphere rang with grieving elegies, self-flagellation and mournful ballads; red flags, youths and women dressed in black were part of the huge procession.

  Conspiracy in Captivity

  A stone’s throw away, J J Hospital was going about their business as usual. The hospital, which has stood the test of time, is housed in a stone building constructed in 1845 by a philanthropic Parsi merchant, Jamshetjee Jeejebhoy, and the East India Company. It has been a mute witness to the social and cultural upheavals in the city and especially Mohammad Ali Road. It is now run by the Maharashtra state government to provide healthcare at subsidised costs to the economically poor from the entire south and southeastern fringes of Mumbai.

  On that day, the hospital was as usual a hub of activity. The staff nurses were buzzing about and barking instructions to families crowding about patients. Just then, a team of six heavyset policemen walked into the hospital. The men were in khaki uniforms, and nestled between them was a lanky figure. His scrawny wrists were in handcuffs, and he tried to keep up with the policemen who roughly led him through the corridors of the hospital. Dressed in a loose, soiled shirt and dusty pants, the young boy looked very bright and intelligent. He had thick eyebrows and had a smart demeanour. His eyes had a happy smile and when he laughed, people were drawn to him. He was charm personified. He held his head high and his gaze was steady.

  The boy was escorted to the second floor of the hospital and into the ward for prisoners. The boy was famished and a shrivelled shadow of his former self, so he did not evoke any fear in the nurse who was waiting for him. She, like many others, was oblivious to the identity of this twenty-one-year-old. ‘What did you do?’ the nurse asked.

  ‘Amongst other things, I shot dead MLA Ramdas Nayak,’ he replied, laughing.

  The boy was Firoze Kokani after all: young, hotblooded and the most dreaded sharpshooter of the underworld mafia.

  Firoze scanned the corridors, looking for something. ‘Sahab, time kya hua hai?’ he asked the constable, for the tenth time in the span of an hour.

  ‘Kyu be, bahot time puch raha hai, jo bhi ho tera toh bura time hi chal raha hai, What, you’re asking for the time so often; whatever time it is, it’s a bad time for you,’ the constable replied.

  Firoze smirked at the constable and looked away, barely able to hide his eagerness for a certain visitor.

  It was half past three now, and Firoze was scheduled to visit the radiology department for a CT scan. The police finally decided to take a break for their evening tea and left Firoze waiting outside the check-up ward. Firoze clasped his sweaty hands together, wondering what was taking his friend Sajid Batliwala so long.

  The two had a tremendous bond—it was Sajid Batliwala who spotted Firoze’s ferocity and decided to introduce him to the D-gang and Chhota Shakeel. When Firoze found out he would be taken to J J Hospital for a medical examination—despite being just twenty-one, he had a kidney ailment—he had immediately sent word to Sajid. The hospital was a place where the police’s reins of power were often relaxed. They would often allow convicts to meet their relatives and lawyers either in the gardens or at the back of the hospital in return for some consideration. Two days prior to his examination, Sajid had sent his informer to meet Firoze in jail to pass on the plan detailing his escape.

  Suddenly, Firoze heard a familiar voice. He lifted his face to see Sajid heading his way. Firoze’s face lit up; the plan was in action. He grabbed Sajid’s arm and pulled him to a corner. He asked Sajid what had taken him so long, and in hushed tones whispered quietly, ‘Samaan laya kya? Brought the stuff?’ Sajid said nothing. Instead, he pulled out a black revolver from his pocket and thrust it into Firoze’s hands. Firoze pulled his gaunt body into an upright posture. Sajid handed him another gun which Firoze quickly tucked into his shirt. He was no longer a helpless prey; he was now the predator.

  Sajid motioned to Firoze that he would be waiting downstairs and left as quickly as he had come. It was time to turn the tables around.

  Four guards returned from their tea break. They handcuffed Firoze again—they had been removed since he was in the radiology department—and pushed him forward towards the stairs. Ignorant of the impending disaster that awaited them, one of the guards poked Firoze with his baton to move faster down the steps. In a flash of a second, Firoze swiftly turned around and landed a heavy punch to the jaw of the guard. He pushed the guard down the stairs, pulled out his pistol and started firing. Gunshots resounded through the corridors, sending waves of horror and shock throughout the hospital. People were now running helter-skelter. Firoze took advantage of the commotion and started running towards the exit of the hospital. He may have shot down two guards, but he was still being chased by the other two. Firoze knew he had to get out of the hospital before they caught up with him. Handcuffed and panting, Firoze made his way through the frantic stampede that had ensued. He was quick as lightning.

  In a flash, he made his way to the railings of the balcony on the first floor. Without a second thought, he climbed the railings and jumped to the ground floor. Firoze looked back at the two guards chasing him with their guns pointed in his direction. He lifted his own pistol and started firing in all directions. Then, limping, Firoze dragged himself to the gate. Outside, Sajid was waiting for Firoze on his motorbike. He spotted Firoze and kickstarted his bike. He rode his bike to Firoze and took a sharp turn at the gate. With a quick jump, Firoze got onto the bike and the duo sped off. Not only was Sajid skilled on the bike, but his speed was beyond match for most other riders.

  Once out of sight of the hospital’s gate, Firoze’s handcuffs were removed. The duo put on black shirts and melted into the teeming crowds in the procession. The pulsating tempo of the chants of the procession matched the Firoze’s heartbeats. He looked around at the crowds; nobody batted an eye in his direction. After having spent three years in jail, he was finally a free man.

  This was one of the most audacious escapes scripted by a member of the Mumbai underworld. Firoze’s escape left the Mumbai police redfaced. To let a convict of Firoze’s notoriety escape from under their noses left a deep stain on their reputation. One of the constables guarding him, B. D. Kardile, had even lost his life.

  To begin with, the elusive gunman had only been arrested after months of pursuit by then deputy commissioner of police, crime, Rakesh Maria. Had it not been for Maria’s perseverance, the police would never have managed to lay their hands on Firoze. Maria’s team had successfully nabbed and arrested Firoze in Bangalore, and the feat was considered a major success for the team.

  ‘I had warned everyone that Firoze would get away. We had internal information about a plan, and the information was forwarded to the men,’ stated Rakesh Maria, now director-general of the home guards.

  Firoze and Sajid finally reached Reti Bandar at Kalwa, near Thane. They abandoned the bike and went their separate ways. The man behind the coldblooded murder of BJP MLA Ramdas Nayak was free. Ten days later, Firoze Kokani headed to Dubai, never to be seen or heard of again.

  A Date with Death

  Around the end of 1993, BJP leader Ramdas Nayak had just emerged as a power force like no other political figure. He had a dour persona but was a smart politician. His clout was huge. Nayak was best known for his twelve-year private legal battle over the cement scandal that forced A. R. Antulay to step down as the state’s chief minister. The buzz was that Ramdas Nayak would bag the chief minister’s chair if the BJP came to power, and the chances of the BJP–Shiv Sena coalition coming to power was strong at the time (eventually the Shiv Sena rode to power in 1995 and with them the BJP). Who gave the supari for Ramdas Nayak’s killing will always remain a mystery. Was it somebody in the BJP itself? Was it the Congress? Was it a financial deal gone wrong? Everybody was a suspect. While competing politicians within the BJP had reason to bump him off, so did the Opposition parties, as they had seen his dogged determination resulting in the rout of Congress heavyweight Antulay. Nayak was a real threat and a dangerous opponent.

  The killing contract was bagged by D-Company’s ganglord Chhota Shakeel. And Chhota Shakeel in all his wisdom thought it fit to assign the job to one of his more recent finds; someone he had discovered two years earlier during the communal riots that rocked Mumbai.

  It was a usual busy day at Hill Road, Bandra. The street was bustling with vendors and people moving around in swarms. Following Nayak for the fifth consecutive day were Firoze and Sajid Batliwala. The two made a great team: Sajid had discovered the raw talent in Firoze and thought he was perfect for the job of a hitman. If Firoze had channelized his energies elsewhere, he would have succeeded. The kid was bright and had a lot of promise.

  Firoze and Sajid knew that killing Nayak was not going to be easy. The BJP leader was heavily protected by armed bodyguards at all times. They would need far more sophisticated weapons than the ones Nayak’s guards were armed with. But as the famous adage goes among cops and criminals, it is the machine that matters as much as the man who manages it. The guts of the gunman is always more crucial than the gears of the gun.

  To say that Firoze was adept with a gun was an understatement. The twenty-one-year-old was known to have the skills to successfully shoot his targets in total darkness. A gun was his favorite toy and Sajid trusted his aim. It was thus decided that Firoze would take the shot. This was one of the most prestigious killing contracts, and they could not afford a mistake. They practiced dummy runs of the killing in secluded places. Sajid trained Firoze on how to use an AK-47.

  On 25 August 1994, the duo woke up in the wee hours of the morning. It is said that, for any gunman, the morning of an execution requires gallons of gall to move. When it was broad daylight, Sajid Batliwala and Firoze Kokani set out, loaded with guns and about to assassinate one of the city’s top political leaders. One of the hardest contractual killings had been assigned to them and needed to be finished.

  Around nine o’clock in the morning, Nayak stepped out of his Bandra residence and got into his Ambassador car. He took the back seat, with his personal and police guard in the front. The car approached the main road and took a turn towards S. V. Road. It slowed down in the traffic and stopped at a signal. Firoze and Sajid were already stationed near the signal. They spotted Nayak’s car and approached it quickly, not together but from opposite sides. Sajid began shooting randomly to divert the bodyguard’s attention towards himself and distract everyone.

  Before Nayak could figure out what was happening, Firoze fired a volley of bullets at the vehicle. Nayak’s police guard pulled out his sten gun, but it was no match for Firoze’s AK-47. He put up a great fight, but lost his life in the battle along with Ramdas Nayak. Firoze informed his men, who had been posted near Nayak’s residence in case the politician surived the attack and returned home, to run. The men hijacked an auto on the way and threatened the driver at gunpoint to speed off. The other men stationed close by escaped in a Fiat and on bikes.

  Both Nayak and his guard were rushed to a nearby hospital but they were declared dead on admission. Nayak’s private guard survived the gunfight.

  The Fugitive Firoze

  As soon as news of Nayak’s killing broke out, the political scene heated up with the BJP insisting that the murder was a result of political rivalry. The Mumbai police groped in the dark to find a motive that would lead them to the murderer. It was suspected that this was a supari killing, given the attack was carried out with a weapon of such tremendous firepower. The last time an AK-47 was used in Mumbai was in a shootout at the state-run J J Hospital in September 1992. The police team, led by DCP Rakesh Maria, investigated a number of angles. Besides a land dispute and an underworld contract killing, other theories included Afghan mercenaries from Kashmir who wanted revenge against Nayak for helping to fight terrorism in Doda.

  The police department were particularly keen to find out who was behind the shootout as one of their own was killed in the attack. In the ’80s and ’90s, police informers were very active. These shadowy figures lived on the threshold of death as they were constantly dallying with both the police and the mafia. Inspector Dinesh Kadam from Maria’s team had a good network of informants and Maria lost no time in putting them to work now. Soon enough, he found out that it was Firoze who had carried out the shootout. He then put his best men on Firoze’s trail to track him. But for a year, there was no sign of Firoze or any of his accomplices.

  The cops got their first clue in October the following year. An informer alerted Sub-Inspector Dinesh Kadam that Firoze had been seen in Bangalore, where he was going to carry out his next assignment. Kadam immediately left with his men and stayed put near Hotel Blue Diamond, where Firoze and two others were holed up. The cops first confirmed his presence in the hotel and decided to arrest him in the night so that other patrons would not be disturbed. But they were faced with one major setback. Nobody knew what Firoze Kokani looked like. The only thing they knew about him was that he wore an earring in his left ear. It was a risky ambush for the Mumbai police, and that too on alien turf.

  Around midnight, Kadam and his officers went to the second floor of the hotel. They went up to the Firoze’s room and, to their surprise, saw that the door was ajar. One of them knocked on the door, and when nobody answered, they gave it a slight push. When the door swung open, the cops saw a man sipping a drink, sitting alone in the room. The police found out later that the two other men who had been with Firoze had gone to see a mujra show, and Firoze had decided to stay back alone. He had left his door open, thinking that his men would return soon and he wanted to have his drinks undisturbed.

  As soon as Firoze saw the cops enter, he made a mad dash towards the bed where he had stocked his weapons. However, Kadam and his men kicked Firoze down with one hard blow and pushed him to the ground. He was quickly overpowered and cornered. The police sat him down on the sofa, and whipped him to start him talking. During the interrogation, Firoze confessed to the Ramdas Nayak killing and revealed his other partners in the crime.

  ‘Firoze was cornered with no support; he had no chance of an escape. He had to submit,’ concluded Kadam.

  The fact that Kadam and his forces had nabbed Firoze was not disclosed. It was a crucial time and while his capture was kept a secret, Kadam was able to coax names and addresses of other members of the gang from Firoze. The information was then passed to the police. The forces dispatched a search party to all the hotels and places where the others were hiding.

  The usual operandi was as follows. The police party would reach a particular hotel and confirm to Kadam that the accused were in one of the rooms. Firoze was then made to call the accused and inform them of a police crackdown. Firoze was made to tell him that an associate was already arrested and they were next. Kadam had instructed his officers to be stationed downstairs in civil clothes and when the accused would exit the hotel in a hurry, they would be arrested. The fact that they were rushing out of the hotel was their identification.

  ‘We arrested at least five men in a similar way. The cops knew that the person running away from the hotel would be an accused. Nobody else would leave their hotel rooms in such panic at two in the morning,’ said Kadam.