After he rose to power, it was Dawood who asked for a collaboration, and Mirza agreed, realizing that he would be safer with Dawood. Dawood’s reputation of transforming crooks into kings in India also helped him in Nepal. He joined politics, and playing the communal card in the election, Mirza won with a thumping majority. He was elected to the House of Representatives from the Terai district of Kapilvastu in 1994 and held ministerial portfolios in two governments. Three months before his death, he was the information and technology minister of Nepal.

  According to the police, Mirza would take men from the D-Company to a safe location in Krishnanagar, which was his stronghold. Even during the blasts of ’92–’93, it was Mirza who helped people like Salim Kutta, Feroz Wahid Zafar, Safdari and many more escape. Police also believed that Mirza regularly used his Krishnanagar mansion to shelter gangsters on the run from Indian enforcement agencies. His residence was also used for other illegal activities, including the confinement of abductees, drug-trafficking, gun-running and forging of documents. He was so effective that Dawood was able to establish a strong base in Kathmandu and even thought of shifting there for some time. Mirza’s greed had turned him towards gun-running, smuggling arms procured from the Afghan Mujahedins and the ISI into India. Mirza was also the brain behind the bomb blast in Menka Talkies in Gorakhpur, UP in 1993.

  Rajan knew that Mirza was the backbone of the D-Company in Nepal. Eliminating Mirza would be like attacking Dawood himself. This was an important assignment and had to be given to someone who was daring and fearless. He knew Tanasha was the right choice for this job. So Tanasha left with his five men and crossed the border into Nepal through Raxaul.

  Rajan also contacted his other sharpshooter, Rohit Verma, who was already in Nepal, and asked him to organize the killing with Tanasha, but advised him not to strike in Kathmandu. A shooter organized by Babloo Srivastava, a Delhi based ganglord who specialized in kidnapping, also helped in the mission, as he had scores to settle with Mirza. Mirza had helped him get a Nepali passport but later abandoned him when he was arrested in Singapore. Babloo thought that Mirza had done this deliberately on orders from Dawood and wanted revenge. He contacted his aide in Nepal and gave him some money to arrange for a safe house in Kathmandu. However, despite taking the money, they were unable to find a place.

  Tanasha, meanwhile, stayed in a village close to Krishnanagar and started keeping a watch on Mirza. Over the next few days he found out that Mirza had two wives and would shuttle between their two homes. On 29 June 1998, around 9.30 in the evening, Mirza left his safe hideout and went to meet his second wife in Siphal in the Chabahil area. Tanasha and his men had already positioned themselves around the place where Mirza would stop his car. As soon as he got down, a volley of bullets began flying from all directions. Mirza was caught by surprise and did not have the time to defend himself. Tanasha and his men pumped seven bullets into his body, after which he collapsed to the ground and died.

  All five men fled from the spot and dispersed as was planned. While Verma and the other cronies managed to get out of Nepal, Tanasha was stuck in the Himalayan kingdom. He had arranged for a passport and ticket but all his documents were with Verma, and there was no way he could establish contact with him as the Nepal government was on the lookout for the MP’s killers.

  Tanasha decided to take refuge in a small village on the outskirts of Nepal. He thought it would be good to hide there for few days till he found a way to escape. There he met a girl who took a liking to him. Her name was Reshma, and she was a resident of the village. He told her that he had come to Nepal for a job and had lost his documents. There was no way he could return to India. Reshma decided to help him out. She knew a few agents who made fake documents and introduced Tanasha as her husband. They both made documents with fake names and addresses. On the day that Tanasha was supposed to leave Nepal and fly to Delhi, he confessed to Reshma that he had killed Mirza. He also confessed his love for her. Reshma agreed to move to India with him.

  Both left for Delhi and got married a few days later. Reshma had relatives in Delhi and they resided with them for a few days before Tanasha took her back to Chembur.

  Interestingly, suspicions have been raised as to the way Reshma met Tanasha, came to India with him, and then vanished again after he was gunned down by Bharat Nepali’s men. Tanasha and Reshma have a daughter and the girl is being taken care of by his first wife Shehnaaz. Reshma abandoned the child in a boarding school and disappeared mysteriously.

  The Last Wish

  Being on a mission to kill Dawood for most of the time he spent in the underworld made Tanasha a lucrative target. Also, for Dawood, killing Tanasha meant getting rid of Rajan’s right-hand man.

  It was 3 June 2010. Tanasha had a deep urge to see his three-year-old daughter. His wife Reshma had called him over the phone and told him that the girl had been crying all evening. Not a minute had she slept or kept quiet. Tanasha promised to get home soon.

  Around 9 o’clock in the evening he came home looking tense. He first went to his daughter, picked her up and hugged her. She seemed to be at ease and soon started playing with her father. He told Reshma that his legs were hurting. She offered him dinner and a foot massage later. There was an uncanny silence outside Tanasha’s ground floor flat in the Meghana Cooperative Housing Society. He had seven dogs in his compound, but surprisingly none was barking. His ten bodyguards, who were always playing cards and strolling outside the society, were not around. A few had taken leave while the others were just missing. According to Reshma’s statement to the police, five bodyguards were supposed to be there in his compound. It turned out they had taken the dogs for a walk.

  Around 9.45, Tanasha retired to his bedroom and his wife Reshma began massaging his feet. His daughter was in his lap, playing. When Reshma finished massaging his feet, she went to the kitchen, leaving Tanasha and the toddler in the bedroom. All was quiet inside but there were movements outside his house. Five men had entered the society compound. They knew that the usual hustle-bustle of Tanasha’s bodyguards was missing that day. The coast was clear. The sprawling flat had two entrances—front and rear. Three men decided to wait outside in case someone came to help him out. The other two pushed open the rear entrance and barged inside.

  They went through the kitchen and entered the bedroom where their target was present. As the men entered the room, Tanasha tried to retrieve his revolver, which he kept under his pillow. But the assailants began firing at him. A bullet hit him on the side of his chest. He was injured but he knew that the men might hit his daughter. So he asked them to wait and put his daughter aside. He raised his hands in surrender and smiled at his killers, pleading that his daughter should not be hurt. The assailants pumped five bullets into him. Hearing the gunshots, Reshma ran into the bedroom, only to see her husband lying in a pool of blood. The killers looked at her and left the room. Three bullets had entered his skull and two had hit him in the chest. He died on the spot.

  According to the police, six to eight people were involved but only two entered the house. The building guard, who was normally at the front entrance, was at the rear gate that night. Both doors to Tanasha’s flat were open when the assailants walked in. It was obvious that it would not have been possible to get into Tanasha’s house unhindered without the involvement of a close confidante.

  Tanasha’s death was a big blow to Rajan. Apart from the fact that he was considered the main lieutenant in the Chembur area, all Rajan’s financial work was done through Tanasha, as he had been loyal to the don since his childhood days. While it was clear to some that this killing was the handiwork of an enemy of Rajan’s, some people suspected that it was Rajan himself who was behind this murder. The two men had been having some differences related to real estate investment issues, and Tanasha was planning to quit the gang. The mere thought of Rajan bumping off his trusted aide created a flutter in his own gang. Rajan had to call his men himself to assure them that Tanasha was like his son and that he would never do this to him.

  Two days after Tanasha was murdered, the Mumbai Crime Branch received leads that the shootout was carried out by professional sharpshooters hired from inside a jail in the state. Small-time gangster Bharat Nepali, a sworn enemy of Rajan’s, then claimed responsibility for the attack. To avoid suspicion, he said he hired shooters from other gangs who were in jail and did not use his own men.

  Sources said Nepali used his men only for reconnaissance and vigilance when Tanasha was visiting Ajmer. Nepali had another advantage which helped him carry out the murder of Tanasha so easily. He had worked with him earlier when he was in Rajan’s gang as well. Tanasha’s habits, his style of working, his contacts and every other minute detail was known to Nepali. Perhaps that was the reason why he chose his friend as a target. To kill a gangster like Tanasha in his own bedroom with such precision and ease was a huge victory for him in the underworld. And Nepali, after his break from Rajan, had been itching to establish himself as a powerful boss. He had used all his financial power to prove the same. He had made money through years of trade in narcotics, and could therefore hire the best shooters to execute his plan.

  There was another reason why he chose Tanasha as a target. According to police sources, Tanasha was gaining an edge in the collection of extortion money. Even a gangster like Chhota Shakeel was troubled by this, and there were suspicions that he gave Nepali and Santosh Shetty the contract to eliminate Tanasha.

  Both Nepali and Shetty had been close lieutenants of Rajan—they were the ones who smuggled Rajan out of a hospital in Bangkok in 2000 after he was shot at by Dawood’s gang. But both broke from Rajan and formed their own outfits, vowing to do away with the Rajan gang. Nepali was an ace shooter who could rope in criminals from UP for contract killings, and Shetty was a top-rung drug smuggler who had vast contacts with the underworld in SouthEast Asia, South Africa and Europe. He functioned as the cerebral part of the axis.

  Apparently, apart from real estate matters, Tanasha had been eyeing the protection money racket, estimated to be around Rs 3,000 crore. Many old buildings in the neighbourhood of Nagpada and around were being redeveloped, and the main source of protection money came from builders who would pay the underworld to threaten residents of the buildings to get them to move out.

  Nepali knew that Tanasha was trying to grab a lion’s share of these earnings. Already he controlled the hafta from developers in Chembur, which was his stronghold—no other gang was allowed to enter the area. The problem started when Tanasha began eyeing Nagpada, Dawood’s stronghold. He had also crossed swords with a relative of Dawood Ibrahim from the Bohri Mohalla area, over sharing of the money. The fight had escalated to such a level that Tanasha had threatened to kill him.

  Apart from all this, Tanasha had also incurred the D-Company’s wrath by planning numerous attacks to bump off the don in Karachi.

  In fact, the police had received information that a trusted aide of the don was planning an attack on Rajan. Even Rajan was aware of this. Understanding the gravity of the situation, Rajan had told Tanasha to leave Mumbai till the matter died down. But Tanasha was overconfident. He was under the impression that no one could get past his security. However, though he knew that it would be difficult for anyone to kill him in Chembur, he had taken some extra precautions. He had increased his security cover from five to ten guards a few months before the attack on him.

  For residents, the shooting of ‘Farid bhai’ was an unpleasant rewind to the first time something like this had happened in the early ’90s. The Bada Rajan faction had gunned down a fellow-gangster and black-marketer in cinema tickets outside Sahakar Cinema.

  Tanasha’s funeral was attended by many Rajan men as well as the wife of Chhota Rajan, the current Shiv Sena corporator Rajiv Chaugule alias Raja Bhau, and small-time Marathi actors and film producers, including a prominent film producer in Bollywood, Romesh Sharma.

  Amidst the fanfare during his last journey, one could forget that the deceased was a brutal man, feared in the colony, and responsible for killing many.

  HITMAN 3

  Blood Guzzling Bagga

  Mujhe Khoon Chahiyye

  The cops were frustrated. They had never met a criminal who did not break down after being given the third-degree. This was the hardest nut to crack.

  Suddenly a constable came running. ‘Saab, he says to give him a bottle of his favourite drink and he will start answering all our questions.’

  The officer lost his cool and exploded. ‘Doka firla aahe ka tujha, kai ekaila yet nahi?’ (Have you gone mad or you have gone deaf?)

  ‘Why sir?’ the constable asked.

  ‘How can we give him alcohol in the lock-up—?’

  The constable cut in before the officer could complete his sentence.

  ‘Saab, he does not want alcohol, he wants a bottle of blood.’

  Venkatesh Bagga Reddy, alias Baba Reddy, the self-proclaimed Kali devotee, did not break despite undergoing the notorious third degree. But he began singing like a canary when the cops managed to procure the blood of a slaughtered goat from a nearby slaughterhouse and offered it to him in a bottle. After this, Bagga was only too happy to provide all the answers that the police needed from him.

  At the young age of twenty-eight, Bagga was the most mysterious character in the history of Mumbai’s underworld. According to Hindu mythology, there was a demon Raktabeeja’s who was given a boon—every drop of blood of his that fell on the ground would create one more demon. The only way he could be defeated was to ensure that his blood did not spill. When Kali fought with him, she ensured that his blood did not fall by stretching her tongue and licking up each drop of blood pouring from the demon. Bagga believed in this myth, and thought that blood would give him life and drinking the blood of ‘demons’—in this case, his enemies—would make him stronger.

  This Kali bhakt was a lethal-killing machine who would mix rice with the blood of his victims and savour the dish. Raw meat and blood was his staple. On those days when he could not get human blood, he would drink animal blood. And when animal blood could not be had, Bagga would cut himself and add his blood to the plate to enjoy his meals.

  Another thing that set Bagga apart fom other members of the underworld, was that he would accept only non-Hindu targets. And he always remained blatant about his communal preferences.

  Originally from Mushirabad, the commercial centre of Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, Bagga had dropped out of school after Class IX. He took a course at the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) in his hometown and then began worked as a welding engineer in a small firm. On the side, Bagga continued to pursue his passion for body-building. He loved to show off his muscles, and pumping iron gave him great satisfaction. Later, when Bagga was working in a garage, a person known as Haji bhai offered him a job as his bodyguard. Bagga agreed instantly, but there was only one hitch. He would have to shift to Bombay. After much deliberation, Bagga decided to take up the offer, knowing that Bombay would give him more power and money.

  In the year 1989, Bagga moved to Mulund, a central suburb in Bombay, where he also began working as a bouncer in a bar. Soon, the hefty man began hobnobbing with businessmen and underworld criminals who were regulars at the bar. It was his peculiar middle name that everyone identified him by—Bagga.

  Bodybuilder Bagga

  Bagga picked up the most important trait in the underworld: passing on information from one person to another, one gang to another. This not only earned him extra money but also a reputation for having contacts with the underworld. His first brush with crime took place after he met Dimple Dada in a bar in Chembur. Dimple Dada felt that Bagga had the potential to be part of his gang. Moreover, he had a physique that was intimidating enough to throw some weight around. So he offered him a place in his gang at a handsome monthly salary. Bagga could not resist the offer and he joined the gang with the first assignment already at hand. He was asked to kidnap an industrialist’s son from a school in Bandra. He was promised one lakh rupees for the task, a huge amount at the time.

  An excited Bagga meticulously planned the kidnapping. He studied his target’s daily movements and closely observed the school premises. On the day he executed the plan, Bagga kept a watch on the child from his house. As soon as his father dropped him off at the school, Bagga began walking towards the boy. Just then he spotted two policemen in the vicinity and that got him worried. However, he fearlessly picked up the boy and put him in a Maruti van. The cops began chasing him as also the private guards meant to protect the child.

  Bagga decided to abandon the child and escape. But the fear of ridicule and derision at chickening out forced him to return to his hometown in Andhra Pradesh and go into hiding for a while. In any case, since the police were hot on his heels, he felt it would be wiser to disappear from the scene.

  When communal riots broke out after the demolition of Babri Masjid, Bagga returned to Mumbai with an agenda. He wielded a sword and began a stabbing spree in the western suburbs whenever he found a Muslim alone on the streets. Bagga later explained to the police that he believed that he was avenging the death of Hindus. This was also the time when he first became aware of his liking for blood. He killed several people from the Muslim community, every time tasting their blood. The police picked him up among many others but he showed no remorse.

  In jail, the inmates refused to stay in the same cell as Bagga. They feared that he would hurt them because of his thirst for blood.

  Soon Bagga was released from jail and his fear of committing crimes disappeared. He decided to use his newfound courage to find a footing in the underworld once again. He started working at a bar in Mulund, a job he knew best which also helped him to network. Every day, he would flex his muscles to shoo away the problem-makers and beat up those who created a ruckus or refused to pay up.