Pawle took him straight to Dagdi Chawl and subjected him to a brutal interrogation. His screams echoed throughout the room specially designated for ‘chaukashi’, the Marathi word for inquiry, till Kulkarni, between sobs, admitted to having participated in Pappa’s murder. He was then bundled into the same Ambassador car that had brought him there, taken to Tardeo, shot dead, and his body left on the road for the world to see.

  Around this time, Pawle began to be called Sada Mama by the gang. While the nickname might not sound all that impressive, it conveyed the amount of respect that he commanded. Gawli was called Daddy and his brother Pappa. Arun Gawli’s wife Asha automatically became Mummy. Aside from Gawli and his family, Pawle was the only one the gang deemed worthy enough for a respectful nickname.

  For Sada Mama, the next turning point came in 1990 when the police raided Daddy’s house following a tip-off that he was behind Kulkarni’s murder. After an exhaustive search, an AK-47 assault rifle was found hidden inside a sofa in one of the rooms.

  The single weapon was enough for the police to arrest Gawli and charge him under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) Act, a serious charge. At the time, the police had started cracking down on the underworld’s weaponry after learning that the gangs had recently procured a consignment of AK-47s and AK-56s from Afghanistan.

  Gawli was tried and convicted under the TADA, and was sentenced to imprisonment for seven years. ‘Gawli’s jail term elevated Pawle to a position of power. He practically ran the gang while Gawli was in jail, and he did so with an iron hand,’ says retired assistant commissioner of police Jaywant Hargude.

  A couple of months after Gawli was sent to jail, Pawle called up a builder, named a sum and asked him to keep it ready. The builder was one of several who were extorted by Gawli on a regular basis. As with a lot of such people, the builder thought he was a ‘friend’ of Daddy’s. When Pawle called the second time, the builder told him that his arrangement was with Gawli, and he would only pay the top boss. Pawle hung up without saying a word.

  The same day, Pawle’s men barged into the builder’s office, dragged him to their car, and took him to Dagdi Chawl. The builder was taken screaming and kicking into a room in one corner of the chawl where Pawle personally thrashed him to within an inch of his life with his bare hands. The builder’s loud pleas for mercy were audible far outside the room, telling everyone two things: never take Mama lightly, and never be arrogant with him.

  Finally the cries stopped, the door to the room opened, and Pawle walked out of the room, gently massaging his knuckles. He walked straight to his house, even as people fell over themselves to get out of his way, and went to the phone. Settling down on his chair as if nothing had happened, Pawle dialled the builder’s residence and told his son to come to Dagdi Chawl right away. The alarmed son sped to the chawl and Pawle calmly led him to the room where his father was lying in a pool of blood, alive, but lucky to be so.

  Pawle then told the speechless son the amount that he had demanded from his father and told him to get the amount immediately, after which he could take his father away. The son moved heaven and earth but arranged for every last penny so that he could take his father to a hospital before he succumbed to his injuries. Before he left, Pawle only told the son one more thing: do not tell the police. The son complied.

  ‘Over the years, we received countless reports of Pawle assaulting and extorting businessmen in south Mumbai using brutal and ruthless methods. Had all of them approached us, the number of complaints against Pawle would have been close to a hundred,’ Inspector Mahesh Desai remarks.

  Word spread far and wide about what could happen if you made the mistake of saying no to Sada Mama. The extortion money started flowing in easily after that. The only ones who still dared to defy Pawle were the ones with ties to rival gangs or good connections with the Mumbai police. But even these connections did not faze Pawle, who continued to enforce his reign of terror.

  In 1997, Gawli, who had by this time started making extortion calls while in jail, called builder Natwarlal Desai, alias Nathubhai, and asked him to pay extortion money to Pawle. Desai at first did not take the demand seriously and later flat out refused to pay. By this time, the gang war between Gawli and Dawood was on in full swing, and maintaining their fear factor in the minds of the people was as important for them as decimating each other’s gang members. Tolerating a refusal from an extortion target was not an option for Gawli, and for Pawle, whom Gawli called and spoke to about Desai’s refusal, it was the ultimate insult.

  Accompanied by three henchmen, Pawle drove to Desai’s office in Nariman Point, pumped his body full of bullets, and walked out. While the murder in the plush south Mumbai location shook the city, for Pawle, it was just another day at work.

  The Final Straw

  But perhaps the most famous example of Pawle’s ferocity was the murder of industrialist Vallabh Thakkar. One of the leading industrialists in the city at the time, Thakkar owned Raghuvanshi Mills and, according to reports, had used the Gawli gang’s service to evict tenants from the houses he wanted to demolish in order to make way for his projects, in exchange for regular payments.

  In 1997, Thakkar made two mistakes which would cost him his life. When Pawle contacted him and demanded fifty lakh rupees, a huge amount in those days, he refused to pay, asking him to accept less instead. Even worse, when Pawle persisted with his threats and demands, Thakkar complained to the police. The ultimate gesture of defiance angered Pawle so much that he became blind to everything except teaching Thakkar a lesson.

  A terrified Thakkar appealed to the police to save him from an infuriated Pawle. Gawli was in jail at the time, and some senior police officers approached him to broker a deal on Thakkar’s behalf.

  The extortion rackets always ran on an understanding between the underworld, the police and the business fraternity. If the underworld chose a target who had connections in the right places, the police would step in and a compromise would be brokered. Everyone, including the underworld top bosses knew and followed this. The same understanding might have worked out for Thakkar, too, had he not registered a complaint against Pawle, something that inflicted a deep wound on the gangster’s ego.

  Gawli sent word to Pawle from the Arthur Road central jail, telling him that Thakkar was prepared to pay twenty-five lakh rupees, and that he should accept the money and let the matter end. Pawle sent word back saying that he would only accept fifty lakh rupees, and not a penny less. Further, he told Gawli, he would make sure that Thakkar paid the money or paid with his life.

  ‘Jau de na, Mama. Kashala adun basto? (Let it be, Mama. Why are you being adamant?)’ Gawli asked him.

  ‘Saalyani complaint ka keli? Aata nahi sodnar. (Why did the bugger complain? Now I’m not letting him go),’ Pawle responded.

  And so it was that Pawle and two of his men barged into Thakkar’s office and shot him dead in broad daylight.

  What is significant about the incident, and this is something everyone from the Gawli gang to the Mumbai police took note of, is that Pawle openly defied Gawli’s instructions. And even more importantly, Gawli let him get away with it. Even Gawli knew not to stand in the way of an enraged Pawle. Some even go as far as to say that Gawli—having seen Pawle’s journey from an aggressive, short-tempered mill worker who got into fights over kabaddi matches, to a ruthless and feared chief lieutenant in the gang—was scared of Pawle.

  His rising notoriety and the fast-spreading tales of what happens to people who cross Sada Mama earned him the ire of the Mumbai police, who pulled out all stops to stop him.

  The late ’90s was an era of instant justice for the police. They had seen enough instances where top lawyers hired by gangsters decimated public prosecutors in unequal battles and secured bail for their clients. Gawli himself had managed to make a mockery of the legal system of the country.

  Pawle was Gawli’s most powerful weapon, and equally elusive. The entire police force was after him. They did not mean to book Pawle, they wanted him dead. Despite the courts coming down heavily against extrajudicial killings, the police had decided to make him an example.

  Top-notch encounter specialists like Pradeep Sharma, Praful Bhosale and Vijay Salaskar were given total freedom to track down Pawle and kill him. Never mind if it was in a crowded place and the killing was witnessed by hundreds of witnesses.

  This kind of total support and freedom emboldened the trigger-happy executioners.

  Crime Branch officers under Param Bir Singh, who was then deputy commissioner of police (crime), launched a manhunt for Pawle, who had, by this time, sensed the impending danger and started changing his location frequently and trusted no one.

  In August 1997, the late Vijay Salaskar, who was then an assistant police inspector, received a tip-off that Pawle had come to Dagdi Chawl after weeks of being underground. Salaskar called in back-up and raided the chawl, but could not find Pawle despite an exhaustive search. Pawle, either because he learned about the raid or because of his cautious nature, had slipped out a short while before the police arrived.

  Even as Salaskar was briefing his superiors about the failed raid, he received another tip-off: Pawle was at that moment heading out of the city along with his friend Vijay Tandel. Salaskar hurriedly put together a team consisting of himself and sub-inspectors Hemant Desai and Avinash Sawant, as well as several other officers and constables. The tip-off said that Pawle would be going to Rajawadi Hospital junction at Ghatkopar east before proceeding out of the city.

  Salaskar, working further on the tip-off, found out that Pawle, his sister Hausabai, brother Anand and Anand’s wife Anita, were going to Shirdi. Anand had asked one of his colleagues from the Central Railway, Baldevsingh Panesar, to accompany them. Panesar was joining them at Vidyavihar, as he stayed in the Central Railway headquarters there.

  The informant had told Salaskar that the group would meet at Rajawadi junction and exit to Eastern Express to head to Shirdi. Acting swiftly and determined not to miss this time, Salaskar also stationed a back-up team at Mulund check naka.

  Pawle’s Fiat was intercepted near the Rajawadi Hospital by Salaskar’s Maruti 100, while Sub-Inspector Subhash Mayekar stopped his own car behind the Fiat. The cops jumped out of their vehicles, guns trained. After this point, the sequence of events depends on who is doing the telling.

  The police’s version is that Pawle stepped out of the Fiat, anger written all over his scowling features, an AK-56 in his hand, and let loose with the deadly assault rifle, while Tandel, stepping out of his side of the car, opened fire with a pistol. Two constables were injured in the firing, and the entire police team returned fire, riddling both Pawle and Tandel with bullets.

  According to the writ filed by Hausabai and Anand in court, though, the entire encounter was staged and Pawle and Tandel never stood a chance, as the plan was always to kill Pawle and not to arrest him, and Tandel just happened to be collateral damage.

  The brother-sister duo submitted in court that the policemen descended on their Fiat and dragged Pawle and Tandel out, while the remaining occupants tried to save them. Hausabai, in her deposition, told the court that she was clinging to Pawle to save him, but he told her to let him go and save herself, after which Pawle and Tandel were shot dead in cold blood.

  The matter went all the way to the Supreme Court, and in September 2014, the court delivered a verdict in favour of the police, ruling that the encounter was genuine.

  HITMAN 6

  The Ghost Who Killed

  An Inclement Proposal

  ‘Apni behen ki pati ko jaan se maar do, phir main maan samjhunga tum mein koi baat hai (Kill your sister’s huband, and then I will know that there is something in you),’ Chhota Shakeel’s deep voice grunted on the other side of the line.

  Sadiq Jalawar felt the ground slip from under his feet. He was aghast at what he had just heard. His face turned pale and his hands started trembling. He loved his sister. She had been happily married to her husband, Zulfikar, for years now, and Sadiq couldn’t swallow the fact that he would have to widow his sister with his own hands.

  It was such a high price to pay to join the army of killers that was the Chhota Shakeel gang. Tears began welling in his eyes. Sadiq’s silence echoed on the phone. Shakeel told him to man up and do what was asked of him. He told Sadiq to call him only when Zulfikar was dead. Sadiq swallowed a glass of water that was on the table and told Shakeel the job would be done.

  Sadiq decided that he would pull the trigger at pointblank range and scoot from the spot even before his beloved brother-in-law could collapse to the ground. Sadiq felt that if he could avoid seeing his brother-in-law in a pool of his own blood, life ebbing out of him slowly, eyes quieting, and death coming to him in gasps, perhaps then he could forgive himself.

  But Shakeel wanted to test him thoroughly and was not willing to make any concessions. ‘I don’t want you to use a gun. I want you to kill him with a chopper,’ he said.

  Sadiq froze. How could he inflict stab wounds on his brother-in-law? And chopper injuries were excruciatingly painful. Victims shrieked with agony. The victim might not die with one stab of the chopper. It might require multiple attacks. The screams of pain, the victim’s struggle to remain alive against a forced death was an unbearable sight for a relative to witness. Especially if they loved each other and there was an intense level of trust between the two of them. But Sadiq could not protest. He suppressed the rising bile in his mouth. And struggled to mouth two words.

  ‘Ji, Bhai.’

  Sadiq then hung up the phone and paced around the dark room. His mind faltered at the offer he had just accepted. Chhota Shakeel and his gang members had never taken Sadiq seriously. To prove them wrong, Jalawar had confronted Shakeel and asked for a chance to prove his worth. In return, Shakeel had proposed this idea. Sadiq knew Shakeel’s intentions behind the task. Shakeel was aware of how much Sadiq loved his sister; he knew Sadiq would never do anything to hurt her. But times had changed and so had Sadiq. He was more ambitious than ever. He had just left Arun Gawli’s gang and was determined to make a mark with Chhota Shakeel’s company. Even if it came at the cost of widowing his own sister.

  The same night, Sadiq called his sister. She was overjoyed to hear from her brother—it had been weeks since he had called. They had been very close growing up, and she returned the deep affection he had for her. Sadiq’s voice choked with emotion, but he held on to his vision. His sister invited him over for dinner, which Sadiq politely turned down. He asked his sister for her husband. A confused Zulfikar came on the line. Sadiq told him he had some work with him and to meet him outside, by his gate. Zulfikar agreed and they hung up.

  Zulfikar knew how close Sadiq was to his sister and he was surprised that he had refused to come home. Sadiq had never lied or disobeyed his sister before. Something was wrong, and Zulfikar was curious to find out what it could be.

  Zulfikar immediately left his house and waited outside the gate. After a few minutes he saw the headlights of a bike coming his way. It was Sadiq. Zulfikar heaved a sigh of relief and greeted his brother-in-law. Sadiq hugged Zulfikar with one arm, and held the other—the one holding the chopper—behind his back. Zulfikar asked Sadiq what was wrong and why he wouldn’t come inside the house. Sadiq was quiet. He stared at Zulfikar, his heart racing at what he was about to do.

  ‘Mujhe maaf kar dena, Bhaijaan (Forgive me, brother),’ Sadiq finally muttered. With that, he took out his chopper and struck Zulfikar with heavy blows. Sadiq stabbed him five times and pinned him to the ground. He waited over the writhing body of Zulfikar to see him breathe his last. When the bloodshot eyes of Zulfikar no longer held signs of life, Sadiq collapsed to his knees. He wailed loudly, his hands covering his face in shame at what he had done. He wept uncontrollably for minutes, and then wiped his tears and stood up. Sadiq took one last look at his sister’s house, mounted his bike, and left.

  Sadiq then called up Shakeel and informed him that the task was complete. He had single-handedly destroyed his sister’s life and made her a widow. But that was a price he was willing to pay to earn Shakeel’s respect.

  Shakeel was shocked when Sadiq called with the news. Shakeel had expected him to call back with the report that he had changed his mind or a request for a different assignment. So when Sadiq called to say that he had killed his brother-in-law, stabbing him five times all over his body, Shakeel could not believe it. But he knew that Sadiq would not make a false claim. That day marked a transition for Sadiq. From Sadiq Jalawar, he now became Sadiq Kalia. Shakeel was so impressed with Sadiq that he invited him to Dubai to meet him.

  Once there, Sadiq became an instant hit with the gang. Shakeel introduced Kalia to another gang member, Salim Chikna, and asked the two to team up. They later went on to form the infamous Kalia–Chikna duo. Chikna was an expert biker and could manoeuvre the machine however he wanted even in the midst of the most acute traffic congestion. He drove at a lightning speed and no police van had ever been able to catch up with him. It was a time of relentless and incessant killings by the duo. Both unleashed terror on Chhota Rajan’s men in the mid-’90s. The duo has been credited with nearly twenty to twenty-five killings on the behest of Shakeel.

  The ABS Demolisher

  At the time, the political scenario in Mumbai was like a rollercoaster ride for politicians. Arun Gawli was no exception. Initially, it seemed as though things had brightened up for him. The Shiv Sena presented him as a Hindu don, pitting him against Dawood. Sena supremo Bal Thackeray had no qualms in siding with a don that was Maharashtrian—something he publically announced after his Dussehra rally in the aftermath of the 1993 riots. Gawli’s association with the Shiv Sena gave him political patronage. But soon, Gawli began suspecting that Bal Thackeray was ignoring him and that the Sena were only using him for his Hindu name. Cracks in their relationship showed when Gawli ordered the killing of Thackeray’s manasputra or godson, Jayant Jadhav, and Sena MLA Rameh More. Gawli believed that Jayant Jadhav was instrumental in Thackeray getting close to his rivals, the Ashwin Naik gang.