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Watch
out: Jagdish Sail |
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Sunil Kakede was a
Chhota Rajan henchman, say the police. His widow works as a maid
in six houses to feed her three children |
Pratibha Kakede
works as a housemaid. She used to return home by two in the afternoon.
But on November 13, 2006 she was running a temperature and her employer
took her to the doctor for a check-up. At around one, Pratibha called
her husband to see if he was back from his morning shift. Sunil Kakede,
who was working as a driver for Rs 4,500 a month, was already home and,
as was his daily routine, busy making lunch with their elder daughter,
12-year-old Pallavi. Lunch had to be ready before the two younger children,
7-year-old Bhavi and 5-year-old Chirag came back from the local municipal
school. Pratibha told Sunil that she would be late and he should eat
with the children. After lunch, at 2pm, Sunil got a call from a man
he addressed as “bhau” (elder brother) and set out of his
one room house situated over a drain behind the public toilet in Teendongri
slum in Goregaon. Sunil had moved in here after he got bail in a robbery
case in July 2006. He paid a monthly rent of Rs 1,500.
“He had taken
up the driver’s job and I was cooking at two houses. Together
we were earning Rs 6,000 per month,” says Pratibha. When she returned
home at around four, Sunil was not around. She tried calling him but
his phone was switched off. Around 6.30pm Sunil’s younger brother,
who lives along with his mother and two sisters in a chawli opposite
Sunil’s, came over and told Pratibha that according to a TV news
flash, the police had killed Sunil in an encounter.
“I didn’t
believe him and immediately called up Inspector Desai, a Crime Branch
inspector, who had told us that nothing will happen as Sunil had reformed.
Desai said he didn’t know anything but would check and get back,”
says Pratibha. Thirty minutes later, Desai called up Sunil’s brother
and confirmed the news. The Kandivli Crime Branch Unit XI, one of the
12 elite units of the Mumbai police, claimed that Sunil was planning
a major robbery. The police got a whiff of the plan and intercepted
him at Kandivli in the evening. The inspectors importuned him to surrender.
Instead, according to them, Sunil opened fire. They retaliated. Sunil
was killed. Luckily for the policemen, they escaped without any injuries.
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Collateral
damage: The widow and children of Sunil Kakede |
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‘Ramnarayan had
left Chhota Rajan long back. He was only a real-estate agent for
last 8 years. The police knew this. Why then the need to kill
him?’ |
Over the last few
months, Mumbai has witnessed a surge in encounter killings. And those
wielding the gun are the same set of policemen who earned notoriety
for gunning down “gangsters”. The victims of the long arm
of the law this time around consisted of reformed criminals or those
with insignificant criminal records. Circumstances suggest that these
killings are nothing less than cold-blooded murders carried out to further
personal agendas of Mumbai police’s Dirty Harrys. Among the encounter
specialists active again are many veterans like Jagdeesh Sail. Sail
who was lying low after two controversial encounters in 2005 is back
with a vengeance – he shot dead two “gangsters” this
month in the span of just two weeks.
The “encounters”
have mostly been in response to the murder of Amjad Khan, a former aide
of Chhota Rajan who was killed outside a sessions court in Mumbai’s
Fort area on October 14 last year. Khan had severed ties with Rajan
and joined the Chhota Shakeel gang. He was also close to certain policemen
perceived as anti-Rajan and close to Shakeel. Since Khan’s murder,
allegedly at the behest of Chhota Rajan, the two factions of the Mumbai
police aligned with rival gangs have been busy settling personal scores.
The anti-Rajan faction of the Mumbai police is going all out to kill
anybody and everybody who was ever even remotely associated with Rajan
in the past. In an act of retribution, the pro-Rajan faction of the
police is also striking back.
The police claims
that Sunil was a Chhota Rajan henchman who was about to kill a businessman
until they foiled his plans. Pratibha claims that Sunil was in constant
touch with the police and their informers. The man Sunil referred to
as Bhau was a police informer who would regularly take him to cops,
says Pratibha. He set out from his home for the last time after “Bhau”
had called him up. After his death, Pratibha found a diary of Sunil’s
in which he used note down his daily activities. The diary mentions
his daily routine as a driver. Pratibha says that between the two of
them they made just enough money to eke out a living. “He has
left nothing. No bank balance, no jewellery. When he was alive I was
working at two houses, now I work at six places so that I can feed my
children,” she says.
Salaskar says Khan
was Chhota Shakeel’s hitman. Then why was no case ever filed
against Khan? |
A. Dharmadhikari,
head of Unit xi, doesn’t agree. “Sunil was involved in many
robberies in the city and was planning to carry out more,” he
says. Which raises the question as to why the police failed to recover
any looted property from his house.
Ten days before
Sunil was killed, Mumbai police killed Sarfya Gagan Singh Nepali in
an encounter. And one month after Sunil’s killing, one Suresh
Gandappa Pujari was killed in a police encounter. Curiously, all three
— Sunil, Nepali and Pujari — were accused in the murder
of OP Singh, a former Chhota Rajan associate who was killed in Nasik
jail in 2002. Rajan suspected that Singh had joined hands with Chhota
Shakeel. OP Singh was trying to build a parallel gang and was involved
in the attack on Rajan’s life in Bangkok. Incidentally, Amjad
Khan was also very close to OP Singh and it was only after Singh’s
murder that he broke off with Rajan and joined the Shakeel camp.
All three were out
on bail and were awaiting their trial in the OP Singh murder case. It
was a clear message to Chhota Rajan — if you will kill one of
our men, we will kill three.
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Sixty-One
and counting: Vijay Salaskar |
‘gangster’s’
nemesis: Pradeep Suryavanshi |
| |
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The
anti-Chhota Rajan faction of the Mumbai police is killing anybody
who was even remotely
associated with him |
However, the rival
police faction soon struck back. It was time to deliver a message to
Chhota Shakeel. On December 21, 2006 26-year-old Shahnawaz Akbar Khan
came out of the Noori Masjid after saying his asar ki namaz (the evening
namaz). The mosque is situated a stone’s throw away from his chawli
in Kalina, a western suburb of Mumbai, and Khan was with his friends
at a paan shop round the corner. Khan was born and grew up in Shastrinagar
slum in Kalina along with his four brothers and two sisters. He would
get involved in neighbourhood scraps from an early age and had been
booked by the police in more than 10 cases of extortion and robbery.
But Khan had been out on bail and was working with his brothers as an
ac mechanic for over a year. “Around 6.30pm plain clothed policemen
came in three auto rickshaws and forcibly took him along,” says
Shahabudeen, a friend of Khan who was with him at the paan shop. Dozens
of neighbours witnessed the incident. When informed, Khan’s brothers
immediately went to the local police station, but were told that no
one there had picked him up.
His family spent
the entire night waiting for him to return. In the morning they got
the news that police inspector Vijay Salaskar had shot Khan dead. An
encounter specialist, Salaskar is now the head of the anti-robbery squad
of the Mumbai police. It was his sixty-first “scalp”. Salaskar
said that Khan was wanted in over 20 cases. Fact is, Khan had been living
in Shastrinagar slum in full public view. He regularly attended the
court in connection with the cases against him. Salaskar said that Khan
was a key member of the Chhota Shakeel gang and used to carry out contract
killings. Fact is, there was no case of murder or attempted murder against
Khan.
Shaheen was threatened
into silence. ‘The police said they would book me as Chhota Shakeel’s moll,’ she says |
Khan had lived all
his life in a 10 feet by 20 feet room along with his family, which included
his eldest brother’s wife and son; his two sisters, their husbands
and children; and three brothers who were unmarried. Khan’s father,
a taxi driver, had died ten years ago and his mother died three years
ago. The only object of “luxury” in his house is a 12”
Videocon TV perched atop an old wooden table. According to Salaskar,
Khan, along with two or three accomplices, was waiting to shoot a builder
on the Western-Express Highway in the wee hours of the morning. Fact
is, the Western-Express Highway wears a desolate look at those hours
and would be an unlikely place for a builder to be shot at. Fact is,
that Khan was picked up by the police from outside a mosque with dozens
of residents as witnesses. But a few like Shaheen (name changed), a
neighbour who wanted to record a statement against the police, were
threatened into silence. “The police said they would book me as
Chhota Shakeel’s moll if I did anything against them,” said
Shaheen. Khan’s sister Nagma says that they do not have the money
to go to court. “Nobody is helping us. My brothers and husband
are very scared. What can we do? The police are the kings. Tomorrow
they can kill us,” she says. Salaskar denies any wrongdoing. “Khan
was wanted in cases of robbery and we were hot on his trail,”
he says.
Ramnarayan Gupta
was picked up with his friend from outside a mobile phone shop in Navi
Mumbai on November 11, 2006. The shop owner informed Gupta’s brother
who is a lawyer. “After being informed that some men had abducted
my brother in a Toyota Qualis, I sent telegrams to the police commissioners
of Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai. All the telegrams were sent round
4pm and were delivered around 6pm to the three commissioners,”
says Ramnarayan’s brother RV Gupta. At 8.30pm Gupta was killed
in a police encounter at Versova in Andheri.
According to the
police, they had posted two teams of policemen and both spotted Gupta
outside Nana-Nani park in Versova. When they asked him to surrender,
Gupta fired twice, once on each team. While no policeman was injured,
the five rounds of fire opened by the police were bang on target --
one bullet hit Gupta right on the centre of the forehead, one just below
the right ear, one on the right chest and one each on the two nipples.
In what was clearly a brilliant feat of marksmanship, the police say
they fired from a distance of 50 to 60 feet.
Gupta was not alone
when he was picked up. The police also taken with them one Anil Bheda,
Gupta’s partner in his real estate business, who was with him
when the police intercepted him. While Gupta was killed the same evening,
Bheda was held captive for over a month and a half. Bheda told tehelka
that he was first put up at Majestic hotel in Kolhapur, 320 km south
of Mumbai. One week later, he was shifted to the Mid-Town Hotel at Andheri
in Mumbai. All along Bheda was repeatedly told by policemen that if
he ever spoke to anyone he too would be eliminated. Bheda was let off
on the condition that he immediately moves out of Mumbai with his family.
“The Navi Mumbai police also forced me to sign on a statement
saying that I was with Gupta only till 12 in the afternoon and after
that Gupta left saying he was going to Govandi,” Bheda said.
The police first
said that Ramnarayan had more than 20 cases against him. However, in
reply to his brother’s writ petition before the High Court, Mumbai
Police Commissioner AN Roy said that the number of cases was ten, the
last registered in 1998. Out of ten, three were shown as cases of murder
but the police had never arrested him in connection with them. “Ramnarayan
was earlier associated with the Rajan gang. But he had left the gang
a long time back and for the last 8 years he working as a real estate
agent. Everybody including the police knew this. Where was the need
to kill him after so many years when he had reformed and was leading
a normal life,” asks RV Gupta.
Both Ramnarayan
and Sarfya Nepali were killed by the veteran encounter specialist Pradeep
Suryavanshi, who is now posted at the DN Nagar police station. Suryavanshi
has killed over a dozen “gangsters” in the last three years.
He killed most of them as a part of a special squad set up by the former
additional commissioner of police, (west region) Parambeer Singh. Suryavanshi
says both were notorious gangsters and the police fired at them in self-defence.
Which is no consolation
for the hapless families of the killed. According to them, Sunil Kakede,
Shahnawaz Akbar Khan and Ramnarayan Gupta were a bloody game between
policemen and mafia dons ensconced safely in their havens outside India.
