Dongri to Dubai
Authors: S. Hussain Zaidi
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Lotus Collection
© S. Hussain Zaidi, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of the publication
may be reproduced or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, without the prior permission
of the publisher.
First published in April 2012
Fifth impression, July 2012
The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and
the facts are as reported by him which have been verified to the extent
possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same.
The Lotus Collection
An imprint of
Roli Books Pvt. Ltd
M-75, Greater Kailash II Market
New Delhi 110 048
Phone: ++91 (011) 4068 2000
Fax: ++91 (011) 2921 7185
E-mail: [email protected]; Website: www.rolibooks.com
Also at Bangalore, Chennai, & Mumbai
Layout: Sanjeev Mathpal
Production: Shaji Sahadevan
ISBN: 978-81-7436-894-2
Dedicated to my friends
Dr Shabeeb Rizvi
Chandramohan Puppala
Mir Rizwan Ali
Contents
Introduction: Up, Close, and Personal
2. In the Beginning: Bombay 1950–1960
14. Beginning of the Bloodshed
19. Mastan’s Masterstroke: The Truce
20. Dawood’s Smuggling Business
23. Death of a Brother; Birth of a Gang War
28. Pathan in Patharwali Building
29. Typewriter Thief: Rajan Nair
33. Enfant Terrible: Samad Khan
3. Mafia’s Most Daring Operation
4. End of Dawood-Gawli Alliance
11. New D Company-HQ: Karachi, New CEO: Shakeel
14. Peanuts That Proved Costly
20. Not so
Chori Chori Chupke Chupke
28. The Big D Makes the
Forbes
Cut
Foreword
I
first met S. Hussain Zaidi in the winter of 1997, when I had just begun writing a novel about the Mumbai underworld. I desperately needed help, and was lucky enough to have a sister who knew Hussain through their shared profession of journalism. So I met up with him at the cheerfully-named Bahar restaurant in the Fort area of Mumbai. I asked questions, and Hussain told me stories about greed and corruption, about shooters and their targets, and despite the chill that passed over my skin, I was aware of a rising swell of optimism—this guy was really, really good.
I didn’t know that day that S. Hussain Zaidi would become a friend, an extraordinary inside informant about matters relating to crime and punishment, and my guide into the underworld. But that is exactly what happened. Over the next few years, as I wrote my novel, Hussain generously shared with me his vast knowledge, his canny experience, and his host of contacts. I can say with certainty that I would not have been able to write my book without his ever-ready help and advice.
It makes me very happy that Hussain has finished his magnum opus,
Dongri to Dubai
, so that the general reader can now benefit from his expertise. This book does much more than narrate the saga of one man’s rise, it brings alive the entire culture of crime that has grown and formed itself over the last half century in India. And as much as we like to distance ourselves by pretending that the underworld exists quite literally under us, beneath us, the truth—as Hussain shows—is that we mingle with it every day. The influence of organised crime reaches into the economy, our polity, and everyday life.
Yet, our knowledge of the intentions and operations of the players on all sides of the law is mostly a mixture of legend and conjecture. Our histories begin with a few names—Haji Mastan, Varadarajan, Karim Lala — imbued with dread, and continue with still others —Dawood, Chhota Rajan, Abu Salem—haloed with matinee glamour. What we have lacked is a narrative that provides both detail and perspective, that lays out the entire bloody saga of power-mongering, money, and murder.
Dongri to Dubai
is that necessary book, and more. It gives us an account that is vast in its scope and yet intimate in its understanding of motive and desire. Hussain moves us from the small gangs of early post-Independence India to the corporatising consolidations of the eighties and through the sanguine street wars of the nineties; we better comprehend our present, with its abiding undercurrent of terror, if we follow the tangled, stranger-than-fiction history that puts an Indian gangster in a safe-house in Karachi, with a daughter married to the son of a national celebrity, and his coffers enriched by the bootleg sales of Mumbai movies to Pakistanis.