This gruesome murder was perhaps the first killing carried out on the streets of Dubai by the Mumbai mafia. His assailants left his body on the streets and dialled a number. Sulaiman had been executed. A familiar laugh resounded on the other side of the phone. Rajan had done what nobody could. He had finally put Sulaiman to rest. It also marked the beginning of one of the most lethal gangwars in the history of the mafia—Chhota Rajan had now pitted himself against his former boss, Dawood Ibrahim.

  To this day, Chhota Rajan is a wanted man in Dubai. The Dubai police have a lookout notice for him. The assailants from Chhota Rajan’s gang were sentenced to death, but not before they pointed fingers at Chhota Rajan.

  While it would be easy to dismiss Sautya as just a cog in the wheel of the D-Company, one has to remember that he was the man who executed the big crimes and helped bolster the image of Dawood Ibrahim as the Big Don. Sautya was Dawood’s most daring and dangerous hitman. The streak of madness in him made him both an asset and a liability to the organization. But be it businessmen or rival gang members, Sautya never hesitated to take on any killing assignment. From the day he liquidated Bhau Marathe in Girgaum to the time he got killed in Dubai, Sautya was the meanest killing machine that was born on this earth.

  HITMAN 11

  Dhanda, Danda and Dawood

  The Third D

  In the Mumbai underworld, there are men with different morals and principles. Some are hardcore family men, while others are highly religious and devout people. However, there are a few men who believe in no morals or ethics but live by just one ground rule: aurat aur daulat—women and wealth.

  Samad Khan, who was regarded as one of the most brutal operatives from the Pathan syndicate, changed the credo to a cruder form. He used to say, ‘Yeh duniya mein sirf do cheezein hai dhanda aur danda (This world has only two important things dhanda—business and danda—which usually means a rod but is also used as a euphemism for the phallus).’ Khan was a sex maniac and was the most notorious womanizer in the underworld.

  People who worked with him and knew him for a long time claim that Samad Khan could not survive without sex for more than three days. His addiction to sex was known to all his friends and fiends, his confidantes and combatants, his enemies and empathizers. Sex eventually became the cause of his downfall and destruction.

  On that day, he craved sex. So much so that he could not concentrate on anything else. Impulsively, he made a call to Naseem, his new Kashmiri girlfriend, and fixed a meeting.

  ‘Jaaneman, kaisi hai,’ Samad asked Naseem. ‘Mil mereko abhi (Darling, how are you. Meet me now),’ he told her.

  Naseem always met him in a hotel at Grant Road in the Sikka Nagar area of south Mumbai. As soon as Samad put the receiver down, Inspector Ishaq Bagwan, who had been intercepting the call, made his plan. Bagwan wanted to nab Samad as soon as possible and he thought this was the right opportunity. Bagwan immediately called his men and formulated a plan to take on Samad when he walked out of Naseem’s house. He rushed to seek permission from his senior officer, who put a full stop to his plan.

  The next day was Dassera, and Bagwan’s seniors thought that the city needed a peaceful festival. Samad’s arrest could lead to retaliation from other Pathan gangsters, and the police would have another headache to deal with.

  Unaware of his enemies’ machinations, Samad reached Sikka Nagar in a cab, which he stopped near a one-storey structure. As he took the steps to Naseem’s room, his attention was diverted by five large baskets arranged prominently in a corner outside. The criminal that he was, Samad’s observational powers were well tuned. The incongruous presence of those big cane baskets at that spot made him pause, but not for long. The thought of undressing Naseem and plundering her cream-like curvaceous nude body disrupted his thought process. Samad only wanted sex at that moment. Nothing could stop him. He often joked that if someone set fire to his ass when he was in the middle of jackhammering strokes, he would not even feel the burning sensation until he ejaculated.

  Samad rushed to Naseem’s room like a hungry animal, almost tore off her clothes and made brutal and beastlike love. Naseem, he thought, was the most beautiful of all the women he had slept with. Her Kashmiri roots were evident in her fair skin which would turn a shade of pink. For him, Naseem was a beautiful distraction from the world of crime he lived in. Not for a second did he imagine that she might actually turn out to be an instrument of death.

  Outside, the baskets started moving closer. At around six in the morning, as Samad was leaving, he noticed the baskets again. He saw that they had changed position. This time, since he had expended his sexual urge, he felt suspicious. He clutched his gun tighter, fearing that something was amiss. But before he could react, Dawood’s hit squad, including Chhota Rajan, Babu Reshim, Sanjay Ruggad, Dilip Buva and Sunil Sawant, emerged from the baskets and fired a shower of bullets at him. The attackers were well aware that Samad was an early riser and had decided to target him when he was most likely to be caught off-guard. They kept firing at him till he had stopped moving.

  Sawant, who was known as Sautya in the underworld, walked up to Samad’s lifeless body, kicked him and fired another shot straight into his head. He then looked up at Naseem, who was patiently viewing the attack from her window, like a movie unfolding in front of her eyes. They smiled at each other in agreement. Naseem and the five attackers then disappeared from the area. The killers fled from the scene in three cars that were waiting for their return. While Samad’s attackers went on to make their name in the underworld, no one ever heard of Naseem again.

  Samad had only paid attention to two Ds—dhanda and danda. He should not have overlooked the third D—the most dangerous one: Dawood. Which eventually brought him to the fourth D—death.

  Samad’s death was as laden with bloodshed as his life was. According to the police, there were twenty bullets all over his body. His death came as a grisly climax to the mounting gang warfare between the Pathan group and the D-Company.

  The Khans and the Kaskars

  In those days, the Bombay underworld was divided in two groups: the Pathan gang, led by Amirzada and Alamzeb, and the D-Company. Both gangs had clearly demarcated their boundaries. The Pathan gang kept themselves busy by smuggling drugs along the Pakistan border, while Dawood’s gang concentrated on smuggling through the Gujarat coastline. But despite the clear divide, there was bad blood between them. What started off with street fights later escalated into gangwars that painted the city red. Though Haji Mastan and Karim Lala, who were looked up to by the newbies, had managed to call a truce between the two warring gangs, the Pathans were said to have recanted on the agreement. Amirzada and Alamzeb used the opportunity to eliminate Dawood’s brother Sabir.

  On that fateful night in February 1981, Sabir was out to meet his girlfriend Chitra when he was caught unaware and attacked brutally in his car at a petrol station at Prabhadevi. Sabir was cornered by the Pathans and killed in gruesome manner. Dawood was shaken by his brother’s murder, and when he saw Sabir’s body, he swore to take revenge. From that day onwards, Dawood became the Pathans’s nemesis; he wanted to annihilate the whole gang. In retaliation to Sabir’s murder, Amirzada was shot dead in a crowded courtroom by Dawood’s man David Pardesi in 1983.

  Samad had not been part of Sabir’s killing, and Dawood knew this. But he was a Pathan. And, more importantly, he was challenging Dawood’s position in the underworld. Samad, along with his friends Shahenshah, Zia and Zuber, had dared to enter Dawood’s stronghold in Pakmodia Street and unleash terror. The four had ridden their motorcycles through Pakmodia Street, firing bullets. Dawood’s men did retaliate, but in the crossfire, Dawood’s brother Iqbal Kaskar was injured. A bullet grazed his ear leaving him injured and bleeding profusely.

  This did not go down well with the don. His ego was hurt and his authority was challenged. Dawood was busy at his younger brother Anees’ wedding ceremonies at the time, and was furious when he learnt about the daring attack in his area.

  This was not the first time that Samad had directly crossed Dawood’s path. Earlier, Samad had looted Dawood’s consignment at the Mumbai docks. Dawood’s smuggling activities were taken care of by his trusted aide Khalid Pehelwan. One day, when his consignment of gold and silver was about to land, Samad and his men entered the area and fired indiscriminately at the men waiting to receive the goods. Then they quickly loaded the crates and drove away.

  Samad and Dawood’s differences cropped up again over a plan to kill a hotelier. The hotelier was under Dawood’s protection, and Samad—despite knowing this—accepted a supari to kill him. For Samad, his word was important. ‘When a Pathan gives his zabaan, consider it done,’ Samad would often boast. He finally honoured his word by killing the hotelier, thereby challenging Dawood and his supremacy yet again.

  The final straw came when Samad assaulted on of Dawood’s brothers, Noora, brutally beat him and inflicting major injuries that almost killed him

  All these incidents enraged Dawood, but he knew that Samad was not just anyone who could be killed easily. Samad was merely twenty-eight-years-old when he earned the title of the most notorious criminal of Bombay. His Pathan connection, brazen attitude and fearless existence gave him an extra edge over the others. After all, he came from the family of Karim Lala, the self-proclaimed don of the city. Samad was Karim Lala’s nephew and he boasted of this relation anywhere and everywhere. Also, he himself was a fearless gunman and he also had a powerful team. His associates—Baba Khan, Mallad Khan, Jangrez, Karim and Sheru—were equally ferocious, and their ambition to take Dawood’s position made them even stronger.

  However, fortunately for Dawood, Karim Lala was not happy about the way his nephew used his name. Every time Samad committed a crime, Karim Lala was picked up by the police and held at the police station. It was quite humiliating for a man of his stature to get arrested for his nephew’s crimes. A few months before Karim Lala severed his ties with Samad, he had a heated argument with his nephew, after which he publicly disowned him. The senior don put out an advertisement in a local daily announcing that he no longer had anything to do with his brother Rahim Lala’s son Samad, and that his name was unnecessarily being dragged into controversies related to him. Karim Lala also announced that he would file a defamation suit against Samad if he continued with his behaviour.

  Samad was heartbroken after he learnt about his uncle’s decision. But he knew that he himself was to be blamed for this. Every time he became involved in a crime it was his uncle who would come on the police radar. Karim Lala was aging and was tired of being hauled to the police station, Crime Branch units and court rooms.

  Karim Lala’s announcement bolstered Dawood’s aspirations and provided the much-needed impetus to his plans. Karim Lala’s protection had been an effective armour for Samad, and the reason behind his survival so far. Dawood addressed Karim Lala as chacha, meaning uncle, and his father Ibrahim Kaskar and Karim Lala were friends. Though Dawood wanted to kill Samad, he did not want to be directly blamed for the elimination. Initially, Dawood had even tried a counter-strategy: he had invited Samad to join his gang. But Samad was a staunch follower of the Pathan gang and the loyalist inside him would not budge. So Dawood had to come up with an alternative plan.

  The Khatarnak Killer Khan

  Samad was not just any other hit man. ‘He was a ferocious monster who could take down twenty men alone. He was caught off-guard when he was killed or else he would have given a tough fight,’ says Bagwan, now retired from the police service. Samad’s price was reportedly between one-and-a-half and two lakh rupees for one supari—quite a high price for the early ’80s. Perhaps the most expensive hitman of his time. But he was considered too volatile, too trigger-happy and often too indiscreet for his own good.

  Police records reveal that he was connected with twenty killings, the last being when he fired two rounds from a moving car at a man named Iqbal who was sitting on the bonnet of another car.

  A month earlier, he had shot a passport agent at Santa Cruz. Later, he was arrested for the brutal murder of Texmaco senior executive S. K. Jain at Sea Rock Hotel. Samad had been given a contract to eliminate a Birla executive with the last name of Jain. Through his trusted informers, he found out that Jain was residing in Sea Rock and was supposed to check out soon.

  He decided to kill Jain in his hotel room. As he walked into the hotel’s reception, he felt out of place at first. Samad was better off in the dingy lanes of south Mumbai rather than this posh hotel. He asked the receptionist for the room number in which Jain was lodged. The receptionist told him that it was against the rules of the hotel to divulge any information about a guest. Samad took out his revolver and placed it on the table and then looked at the receptionist again. She hurriedly scanned the register and told him it was 1921. Samad picked up his revolver and left the hotel. He waited for night to fall so that it would be easy for him to do his job without attracting attention.

  Around midnight, Samad, accompanied by two others, marched into the hotel lobby and took the elevator to the nineteenth floor. When he knocked on the door, it was opened by a middle-aged man who looked at Samad in surprise. ‘Kya re, Jain. Bahut neend ho gayi. Chal time pass karte hai,’ said Samad and pushed him inside. Jain tried to protest but he could do little. Samad sat on the sofa and asked his men to continue. Both his men started bashing up Jain. They pinned him to the ground and went on hitting him for some time till Samad asked them to stop. He then asked the man to strip in front of them. As Jain got up he saw that Samad was pointing his revolver at him and thus had no choice but to oblige. After stripping he was asked to dance to Bollywood songs. This torture continued till morning, and when it was dawn, Samad got up, removed his belt and strangulated the man. All three then left the hotel room.

  The next day, Samad saw in the newspapers that the Jain he had killed was a Texmaco executive, and his full name was S. K. Jain, not Ranveer Jain, who he had been assigned to kill.

  Samad was filled with rage as he had a reputation to live up to. He was known to get his target in a single attempt. As a result, he then went to Sea Rock again the next day and this time killed Ranveer Jain, accomplishing his mission in style.

  In 1981, he was accused of killing a man while trying to get him to sign the sale deed for a flat. In 1983, in the month of August, Samad staged a daring escape from his police escort in the compound of the city civil court. The shooter had hatched a plan with his then girlfriend Shilpa Zaveri. She was a very good driver and no one could catch up with her if she was behind the wheel. That morning, when Samad was brought to the sessions court, Shilpa was waiting in her car at the corner of the road. While Samad was being released on bail in one case, another police team was waiting across the road to re-arrest him in another case. As soon as Shilpa saw the cops escorting him out of the court, she pressed on the accelerator and drove at a top speed towards the police party. When they saw the car rushing towards them they jumped aside for fear of being hit. Only Samad continued to stand where he was. Just as the car was about to hit Samad, it came to a screeching halt. Samad immediately jumped into the front seat and Shilpa sped away. This time she took a U-turn and came back where the other police party was waiting. They waved goodbye to the cops and fled away.

  Shilpa had pulled off the stunt so well that the police had very little time to respond. The police tried to pursue them but could not match Shilpa’s speed and ability to manoeuvre the vehicle. Samad was so impressed with Shilpa that he soon married her and began living with her. However, his desire for other women led to cracks in the relationship and it is suspected that it was also Shilpa who tipped off Dawood about Samad’s location when he was killed at Sikka Nagar.

  Samad’s most outrageous act was when he was lodged in the central jail in Bombay during 1983–84. Samad knew that most of the men in the jail were Dawood’s men and he had to be very careful. But even that did not stop him from calling the shots. He controlled the prison as if he owned it. Even the jail authorities danced to his tune. He was given all the facilities, like a television set, hot water to bathe with and his favourite chicken biryani whenever he demanded. He carried out his extortion business from within the jail. Samad’s freedom depended on two witnesses, and if they turned hostile, there would be no case against him. Samad got his men to bring the two witnesses to meet him in the jail. Once there, Samad handed over a razor to each of them and asked them to shave their head, moustache and eyebrows. When they refused, he summoned the jail barber to get the job done. This, Samad told the two men, was simply a warning. ‘If you speak one word against me in court, you will suffer worse,’ he warned them. ‘Next time, the razor will be at your necks.’

  As he wanted, the two witnesses turned hostile and charges against Samad were dropped. This was not the first time that Samad had walked free from the clutches of the law. Despite the police making a strong case against him, he always managed to stay out of jail. Samad was twice detained under the stringent National Security Act (NSA), but managed to be freed by the advisory board. He also managed to obtain bail in half-a-dozen murder cases for which he was arrested.

  Rama aur Rum

  In 1972, a wealthy Bombay resident opened the first dance bar in the city, named Sonia Mahal. The bar was in the Nariman Point area and it was where one could find all the attractions—women, alcohol and music. Top businessman, diamond merchants and criminals—Sonia Mahal became a hangout for all. The concept was simple: cleavage-showing women would take centrestage and move their bodies to Bollywood songs; the restaurant area would have a seating space from where men could enjoy their drinks and enjoy the alluring sight of the women. Bollywood-watchers say that Feroz Khan’s idea of a bar dancer in his hit movie Qurbani was inspired by Sonia Mahal. In fact, Zeenat Aman’s character in the movie was named after the most attractive girl in the joint.

  The city buzzed with this popular line, ‘Rama aur Rum’, meaning that dance bars offered women as well as alcohol. In the shady corners of the dance bar, deals would be signed or broken. Gradually, the rowdy elements increased and Sonia Mahal and other dance bars that came up one after another would be frequented only by them. It was in Sonia Mahal that the first fight between Dawood’s brother Sabir and Pathan gangsters took place. The police found it tough to maintain law and order here but then it was also a ‘source of income’ for them.