Chotta Rajan’s bloody trail

Things are stirring again in Mumbai’s gangland. That bloody territory no longer consists of the bylanes and slums of India’s financial capital but extends today at least as far as Malaysia in the east and Dubai in the west. After the shooting of Chotta Rajan in an apartment in Bangkok, allegedly by members of the Chotta Shakeel gang, a new round of inter-gang warfare looks highly probable. Police forces in a number of countries in the Malaysia-Gulf stretch will have to watch out for trouble. Mumbai’s cops should expect the worst. Shakeel, who works closely with Dawood at present, has reportedly said the Bangkok shooting was a retaliatory act, in part because Rajan was responsible for murdering suspects in the Mumbai 1993 riots case. In gangland, retaliation is a never-ending cycle of killings in the course of which the lives of many innocents are at risk alongside those of the gunmen, minor functionaries and innumerable hangers-on of the gangs themselves. The major gangs have been at it for more than twodecades on the streets of Mumbai with nothing decided and only the occasional changing of sides to mark the passage of time.

The dons may have scattered and their businesses may have become more broad-based, but it would be a mistake to think the Bangkok incident is a stand-alone event. These criminals have shown time and again they have all the human and material resources — not to mention connections in high places — they need to carry out their will. Even though the bosses of major gangs have found more salubrious climes elsewhere, Mumbai still remains the prime focus of the mafia-type operations of the Dawood Ibrahim, Chotta Rajan and Chotta Shakeel gangs. Hundreds in low income brackets work for them in one way or another. It is not as though having been compelled to flee Mumbai the dons have taken their rackets with them. On the contrary, they manage to run housing or land grab rackets and carry out contract killings just as well from outside India. They are entrenched in certain areas of the city and nothing the police have attempted has cleared them out.

As for their newfound homes, it is not in the interest of any one of the gangs to invite the attentions of the Thai or Dubai authorities, so they may stay away from illicit businesses for the most part while in those countries. They need their host countries as shelters and hideaways and, it is believed, some have set up legitimate businesses as a cover and for money-laundering activities. They will not want to jeopardise all that. The incident in Bangkok is unusual but not illogical since Shakeel’s men do not have a stake in Thailand. The ease with which Mumbai’s gangs operate across several international borders makes it essential for closer coordination between the police authorities of India and countries of Southeast Asia and West Asia. The lack of extradition treaties, of course, makes it difficult to prosecute many of the criminals, Dawood for one, who have settled comfortably abroad. But the police have not been spectacularly successful in shutting down their networks in India either and there is noexcuse whatsoever for that. The Rajan incident is a reminder of how much police work remains to be done.