Like any smart gangster, Dawood and Shakeel realized that Jhingada had killed too many people too fast, and was attracting a lot of heat. The usual solution to the problem would have been to arrange a ‘tip-off’ to an encounter specialist and close the account forever. However, this time, Dawood had something else on his mind; something that he could use Jhingada for.

  Bedlam in Bangkok

  And so it was that Jhingada and Rashid Malabari were spending their last night in India in the small apartment tucked away in a corner of Pydhonie. They were poised to enter the annals of history.

  Dawood had chosen them for a very special purpose. Ever since 1993, Dawood could not decide what he hated more: the fact that Rajan dared to defy him and start his own gang, or the fact that he had managed to portray himself as a patriotic don in the media, telling anyone who would listen that he had parted ways with Dawood because he had plotted against the country, thus winning himself a moral pedestal. Every time the word ‘patriotic don’ was used by the newspapers, or every time Rajan gave interviews to television news channels about his supposed patriotism, something burned inside Dawood with an intensity that was becoming unbearable with each passing day. He felt Rajan had simply run away like a rat to save his life, got into bed with the Indian intelligence services and was now going to town calling him a villain.

  And this was where Munna Jhingada came in. When the time came and the gang cornered Rajan, he wanted someone who would be up for the job to assign the hit to. And Jhingada was the perfect candidate—a totally reckless, daredevil and dedicated hitman.

  The next morning, Jhingada and Rashid flew to Pakistan with false passports, and were taken to Karachi, where they spent over a year close to Shakeel and Dawood.

  And finally, in June 2000, Dawood’s network of informants delivered what he had been screaming for. They gave him a definite lead on Rajan. Dawood immediately told Shakeel to start planning. Shakeel, who hated Rajan with an almost equal amount of intensity, lost no time in putting together a hit squad, and put Jhingada in charge.

  Jhingada was overcome with gratitude when Shakeel told him the name of his next target. He promised Shakeel on everything he held sacred that he would get the job done or die trying.

  In September 2000, Jhingada and his team were smuggled into Bangkok, where they spent ten days verifying their information about Rajan’s whereabouts. It was confirmed that Rajan was staying in a flat in the Sukhumvit Soi area in Bangkok, with his trusted aide Rohit Verma, his wife and daughter.

  On September 15 Jhingada’s hit squad assembled around the corner from the nondescript apartment, where they removed their weapons from their bags, rechecked that they were working and loaded, and then ran to the flat. They entered the flat, headed straight to Rajan’s room—where he had run to try and save himself—and opened fire. The door gave way under the hail of lead, and the killers moved in to be confronted by Verma.

  Jhingada stepped forward and pumped thirty-two bullets into Verma’s body before spraying the room with the remaining rounds in his gun. One round caught Verma’s wife in the shoulder, but she survived. By sheer luck, Verma’s daughter was out playing when Jhingada struck.

  Rajan, too, sustained serious injuries in the attack, but Verma’s loyalty gave him enough time to make good his escape. In spite of the fact that the main target had survived, Jhingada became an instant phenomenon.

  The phones rang off their hooks across the world that day. Yes, they said across Asia, Chhota Rajan had survived a near fatal attack on his life. Yes, they confirmed in Mumbai, it was Munna Jhingada who led the attack.

  The Mumbai police helplessly updated their dossier on Jhingada while getting a verbal lashing from the courts for letting him slip through their fingers. Jhingada was arrested shortly after by the Thai police and is currently in a Thai prison.

  However, the Mumbai police are far from taking him into custody. The Pakistan government has also staked a claim to his custody, making assertions that he is, in fact, a Pakistani national named Mohammad Salim, and the two countries are currently locked in a diplomatic tussle over his extradition.

  HITMAN 2

  The Jettisoned Official Killer

  Government’s Gunmen

  A large advertisement in a Dubai newspaper had announced the biggest event that the city was going to witness in a long time. Strangely, it was an India– Pakistan event that was being closely watched by intelligence agencies from across the world. Sleuths from Military Intelligence 6, or MI6, the UK intelligence arm, had taken position; Isreal’s Mossad, India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) were also keeping a watchful eye as undercover agents. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) also spread its forces across the venue—the Grand Hyatt in Dubai.

  Mr and Mrs Dawood Hassan Sheikh Ibrahim announce the wedding ceremony of their daughter Mahrukh to Junaid Miandad, son of Mr and Mrs Javed Miandad, Inshaallah, on 23 July 2005.

  It was the walimah, a post-wedding feast organized by India’s enemy number one Dawood Ibrahim, and Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad, to celebrate their children’s nuptial bond. On the one hand, fingers were being pointed at Miandad for his decision, and on the other, questions were being raised about how Dawood was able to do anything he wanted while India remained desperate to nab him. There was great curiosity around the lavish get-together—everyone wondered if Dawood would attend, and that too openly. But on the sidelines, a parallel plot was unfolding.

  At the 24 Parganas in West Bengal, two men made their way into the Indian side of the border. Farid Tanasha and Vicky Malhotra—Chhota Rajan’s most valued sharpshooters—had been absconding for a long time. They had been holed up in a south Asian country, and when Crime Branch sleuths first received a tip-off on their entry into India, they were puzzled. Why were they walking into a net, they wondered.

  Meeran Borwankar, the then Crime Branch head, assigned Deputy Commissioner of Police Dhananjay Kamlakar to track Tanasha and Malhotra. The young officer got on the job without wasting any time. He tapped Tanasha’s phone and was able to find out that he was visiting several destinations in the north of India. He and Malhotra were soon going to meet their handler in Delhi. But something was amiss—they were constantly in touch with India’s IB for what seemed like a secret operation.

  Tanasha’s notoriety was established after the murder of Nepal’s Member of Parliament Mirza Dilshad Beg, who was killed in Kathmandu in 1998. Tanasha was the main man behind the killing. And now he was being assigned a much bigger task. While DCP Kamlakar suspected that the duo had been told to eliminate a top businessman, the actual task was to kill Dawood Ibrahim at Dubai’s Grand Hyatt when he attended his daughter’s post-nuptial feast.

  Unaware, Kamlakar and his team reached Delhi where the Indian intelligence agency’s most daring operation was being plotted. Fake documents for Tanasha and Malhotra were ready and the duo was being briefed about the Grand Hyatt’s floor plan, which would help them in getting their target and escaping. If all went well, Dawood—India’s most wanted man—would breathe his last. And Chhota Rajan, who was baying for Dawood’s blood, would heave a sigh of relief. Their prolonged rivalry had become intense after the attack on Chhota Rajan in Bangkok in September 2000 by Dawood’s henchmen.

  So far, Tanasha had made eight attempts to eliminate Dawood Ibrahim on the behest of his boss Rajan, but failed every time. In 1997, Tanasha and other Rajan gang members acquired Nepalese passports to facilitate their free movement in Pakistan.

  In February 1997, Tanasha and Malhotra entered Karachi as cloth-sellers to carry out a recce of the area where Dawood lived—Sea Face, Defence Colony. Again, in March 1997, Tanasha travelled alone, rented a room at Al Mansoor Apartments in Defence Colony, and befriended a man named Junaid, who promised him weapons. A month later, Malhotra took with him seven men who were heavily armed. The group identified Dawood’s house, but couldn’t carry out the operation as Dawood’s movements were extremely secretive.

  Tanasha did not give up easily. Again, a few months later, he rented a place in Defence Colony. But once again Dawood’s movements could not be tracked.

  Two months later, when Dawood’s daughter Maria died of malaria, Tanasha and his aides thought it would be a good time to attack as the don would be in mourning and could be caught off-guard. But the death kept Dawood confined to his house. The team went back to Nepal and returned again hoping to spot Dawood at the graveyard, but the don had been tipped off. Rajan then recalled them, fearing exposure.

  The seventh attempt was made in October 1998. One of Rajan’s hitmen, Nayan, was sent ahead as everyone knew Tanasha very well by then. Tanasha instructed Nayan to do all the groundwork, but told him that the shot at the don would be taken only by him. Nayan reached Karachi and rented a house close to Dawood’s residence. He kept a watch on Dawood for fifteen days with the help of Junaid’s network, but could not locate him.

  The final attempt was in December 1998, when Nayan and Tanasha again entered Karachi and met Junaid and Ali Khan for arms. However, Dawood’s spies found out about their presence in the city and averted the bid on his life.

  These failed attempts were carried out without extensive planning. The shooters did not think that reaching Dawood would be so difficult. They decided to give up on the plan till something concrete came up. Their opportunity came when the former IB chief Ajit Doval, hero of Operation Blue Star, hatched a plan to eliminate Dawood.

  In an exclusive interview to the India Today Group, former home secretary and BJP MP R. K. Singh for the first time blew the lid off one of the most infamous chapters in India’s effort to eliminate Dawood. According to him, the plot went haywire after the Mumbai Crime Branch stepped in, and Dawood too got a whiff of the plan and decided to skip the walimah.

  At that time, it had become difficult for Dawood to move in and out of Pakistan as he had been designated as a globally-wanted terrorist by the United Nations. The walimah was the ideal opportunity for the Indian government to get rid of the don. However, the government did not want to be blamed for his death, so a decision was taken to engage members of the Chhota Rajan gang instead of sending commandos. It would then look like a gangwar, rather than a political move.

  Doval took over as it was his pet project to get rid of Dawood. He got in touch with Rajan, who had split with Dawood after the Bombay blasts of 1993. Rajan needed two men who could be trusted with the job, and Tanasha seemed like the best choice. Tanasha was given the freedom to choose his own partner, and thus entered Vicky Malhotra, as both the shooters shared a good chemistry and were together even in the Mirza Dilshad Beg murder case.

  Both men were trained at a secret location in India as the plan to eliminate Dawood was finalized. Getting Tanasha and Malhotra to Dubai was the IB’s responsibility. Both were given fake travel documents and tickets to reach Dubai from Delhi.

  One day, while Doval was in an animated conversation with Tanasha and Malhotra, DCP Kamlakar stormed into the room with his gun held out. Doval attempted to stop Kamlakar without letting out any of the information about the plot. A call was made to Kamlakar’s boss Meeran Borwankar, but she too stuck to her guns. Kamlakar eventually left with Tanasha and Malhotra in his custody, not knowing that this smaller victory would actually be detrimental for the country in the bigger picture.

  In any case, though, Dawood was a step ahead. He already had a whiff of the IB’s plan and had made a decision to skip the daawate walimah. Though this operation didn’t actualize, Tanasha gained. Being chosen to kill Dawood added an extra edge to his criminal résumé.

  Deifying Don

  When Farid Ahmed Tayyab Tanasha was sixteen-years-old, he often observed a young man selling movie tickets in black at the Sahakar Cinema in Chembur. Tanasha’s family lived in the building opposite the theatre, and the ticket-seller’s daring and swiftness fascinated him. The ticket-seller was Chhota Rajan, who was just starting off in the world of crime.

  Gradually Rajan became the uncrowned king of Chembur. Tanasha’s father noticed his son’s admiration for Rajan and the underworld. He tried to make Tanasha understand the consequences of joining a gang, but it did not affect Tanasha. Whenever he got time and when his father was away for work, he would run to Sahakar Cinema and offer to help Rajan.

  Rajan, too, became fond of this boy and often told him that one day he would become very big and powerful. One day Tanasha’s father found out that his son had joined the gang and that his name would often crop up in petty crimes. The worried father went to meet Rajan and pleaded with him to stay away from his boy. Rajan politely told him that it was Tanasha who wanted to be with him, and he had not forced or called him to become a gang member.

  As the meeting yielded no results, Tanasha’s father decided to shift to a different locality so that the Rajan’s menace in their life would end. He even got Tanasha a job in the Mazgaon docks so that he would remain occupied and not go back to Rajan. But Rajan was difficult to shake off. Every day, fancy cars would come to the docks to pick up Tanasha and then drop him in the evening. This irked the dock authorities and they sacked him within a month. Tanasha’s father then shifted to a colony in Deonar. But even this failed to stop Rajan’s influence over his son.

  Tanasha was so keen to be with Rajan that he wanted to do something big for him to prove his loyalty. Tanasha soon got his opportunity. Rajan’s guru, Bada Rajan, was killed by an auto-rickshaw driver named Chandrakant Safalika. In a daring act, dressed as a naval cadet with his gun hidden in the cavity of a thick book, Safalika followed Bada Rajan outside Esplanade Court when he was brought there for a hearing and shot him dead. Though he was arrested on the spot, Safalika managed to escape when he was being escorted to Thane jail. He then returned to his hideout in Chembur, unaware that Chhota Rajan’s men were waiting for him. He was gunned down by Rajan’s sharpshooter Danny.

  As the police began a manhunt for Safalika’s killer, Rajan expressed that he could not afford to lose Danny at that point of time. He wanted someone to take the blame. Tanasha jumped at this opportunity. He immediately offered to be the fall guy, and surrendered to the police. He knew what Bada Rajan meant to the gang, especially Chhota Rajan, and this gesture would only bring good things.

  Rajan was very impressed with Tanasha and decided to get his cousin Sangeeta married to him so that he would always remain by his side. Tanasha’s father did not approve of this match and placed a condition that the girl would have to convert to Islam. Sangeeta soon became Shehnaaz and got married to Tanasha.

  Tanasha was now an integral part of the Rajan clan. He handled most of the gang’s activities in Chembur; from extortion to real estate deals and killings, he was Rajan’s right-hand and the most trusted lieutenant. He was everything for Rajan—a social worker, powerbroker, smuggler and hoodlum. More than this, he was a clever manipulator. He was now addressed as Farid bhai by the local residents.

  In the early ’80s, several gang members like Tanasha, Gungya, Sadhu Shetty alias Sadhu Anna, Bandya Mama, Danny alias Ganesh Devisingh Bisht, Anil Kashinath Mithbhavkar, Sanjay Raggad and others rose to power and were considered Rajan’s army in Chembur. By the end of the decade, several cases of murder, rioting, attempt to murder, Arms Act under TADA were registered against them at different police stations in Mumbai.

  Rajan had joined hands with Dawood Ibrahim, who was a well-known smuggler of gold and silver in the city, in the early’80s. In 1984, then Mumbai police commissioner Julio Ribeiro started turning the heat on Dawood, and he fled to Dubai. Rajan joined him. Dawood had handed over the reins of his operations in Mumbai to Rajan, who expanded Dawood’s business not only in that city, but also across Nepal and Sri Lanka. The two most powerful members of the gang were not in city, and the reign of the underworld shifted to the hands of their punters, and Tanasha topped the list. Tanasha would be called to Dubai several times—one of the few gang members who had this privilege. He was treated like Rajan’s son and would do anything for him.

  Now a fearless gangster, Tanasha lived lavishly. He boasted about his closeness to Rajan at every moment. When Rajan split with Dawood over the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai, Tanasha remained loyal to Rajan. Dawood is said to have approached Tanasha and asked him to join hands with him. Tanasha, however, flatly refused the offer. By then, Rajan was in touch with the IB and RAW. He had become their tool against Dawood. Tanasha even used this to his advantage. He openly started boasting about his IB and RAW connections to everyone.

  Once when he was summoned to the Tilak Nagar police station for some formalities following his release from jail on bail, a newly-appointed lady sub-inspector on probation asked Tanasha what his business was, as she was unaware that he was so powerful in the area. Tanasha, who enjoyed such moments, did not hesitate to tell her that he worked for an intelligence agency called RAW. Out of curiosity, she asked the same question again, and he politely responded by asking her a question. He asked her if she has seen a movie called Kartoos, starring Sanjay Dutt and Manisha Koirala. ‘That film is based on my life,’ Tanasha told the sub-inspector with a smirk. The officer found it amusing. Tanasha then went further, telling her that he was a celebrity among ganglords.

  The Kathmandu Connection

  Dilshad Mirza Beg was a prominent name in the D-Company. Mirza, as he was called by the company, had successfully established Dawood’s network in Nepal. His entry into the company happened by chance. Both he and Dawood were struggling to set up their empires in Mumbai in the early ’80s. At the time, Mirza also had links with Dawood’s rivals. However, no one thought him to be of much importance till he reached Nepal and got in touch with the ISI.

  As the surveillance along the Rajasthan and Punjab borders with Pakistan was very strict, Nepal became the easy conduit for drug lords to smuggle their goods. Mirza also found the porous Indo–Nepal border easy for him sneak between his home state of Uttar Pradesh and Nepal. Once he had set up a base in Nepal, where he felt safer, his notoriety grew so much that the Uttar Pradesh police announced a reward for his arrest. After the UP police failed to extradite Mirza from Nepal, the Interpol issued a red corner notice against his name.