Married to the mob

Soon, Ashwin was strapped to a wheelchair after a bullet got lodged in his brain during a dramatic shootout outside a courtroom. But this did not stop him from assuming the leadership of the gang after Amar was killed in a police encounter in 1997.

Nita’s dreams of a blissful domestic life were also shattered. Ashwin was on the run and later imprisoned in Tihar Jail forcing her to co-ordinate the gang’s activities.

Soon, Nita became a municipal corporator, elected on a Shiv Sena ticket. It was during this time she became dangerously close to the Chief Minister’s police bodyguard, Laxman Ziman.

Gang affairs became secondary as the romance blossomed and it was only a matter of time before the news reached Naik about his wife’s paramour.

Nita was shot dead outside her residence at Lower Parel. The killers were the same men she had once controlled. She has left behind a son and daughter. Police sources say she was pregnant when she was shot dead.

Dawood Ibrahim- Mahjabeen

It would have been a jolt to young Mahjabeen, had she been aware she would be married to a man who would one day emerge as India’s most wanted and dreaded fugitive. It was simply a matter of pride when her father, Yusuf Kashmiri, a taxidriver, offered her hand to Bombay police havaldar Ibrahim Kaskar’s son, Dawood. For that matter, Dawood himself would never have imagined he would lord over a Rs 4,000 crore underworld empire, whose tentacles would soon spread across the globe.

Sources close to the Kaskars say it was a simple marriage ceremony in a narrow alley of Dongri, a poor Muslim locality in south Mumbai. While Dawood was a small-time hoodlum running a modest racket in and around Temkar Lane in Dongri, his father was a well-known figure in the area’s police circle. For, as a havaldar, he used his influence and camaraderie with his colleagues to pull his son out of prison every time he was charged for petty crimes.

After a brief honeymoon between 1982-83, Mahjabeen soon realised her marriage and husband were hurtling towards doom. Dawood was already a familiar figure in several police stations across the city. ‘‘She was a simple housewife and did not bother much about his activities outside the house,’’ says a source. ‘‘She had no choice either as she was under pressure from senior members in the Kaskar family to keep quiet.’’

Mahjabeen became seriously concerned about Dawood’s safety when her brother-in-law Shabir was gunned down in 1985, by the rival Pathan clan. Dawood swore revenge for his brother’s death and plunged full-time in gang activities in Temkar Gulli, where he lived. Shootouts and stabbings became the order of the day and Mahjabeen was badly shaken, sources add.

Dawood fled the country in 1987, and he was soon joined by his wife in Dubai. The family later shifted their base to Karachi in Pakistan. According to the underworld grapevine, Mahjabeen never participated in mafia activities, not even in an advisory role. A heart patient, she was more content with her family of two daughters.

Dawood, on the other hand, attained notoriety even in his personal affairs with a string of high-profile girlfriends and mistresses, mostly starlets from Bollywood. The mafia don, however, has expressed his love for his wife by buying a large number of properties in her name. Mahjabeen Mansion, a multi-storied building, named after his wife, is one of them and recently came under the hammer of the Income Tax department when it acquired the property in Mumbai.

Chhota Rajan-Sadhana

Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje alias Chhota Rajan’s marriage to Sadhana was an arranged one and the proposal was brought by a family friend. Her background is a mystery and not many have seen her after her wedding in Dubai in the early Nineties.

However, Sadhana came into the news after rival gangsters attempted to kill her husband, known popularly as the ‘Hindu Don,’ in an apartment in Bangkok, on September 26, 2000. Her entry into the Thai capital was as stunning as her disappearance.

Some of Rajan’s close associates saw her in the hospital where the don was convalescing but little is known how she got there and where she disappeared.

The Nikaljes, including brothers, Bollywood producers Deepak and Pradeep, no longer live in the family home in Tilak Nagar where Rajan grew up. Sadhana too has shifted her residence in the suburbs, and not surprisingly, the address is a closely guarded secret.

Underworld sources confirm that Sadhana is not directly involved with Rajan’s gang activities. However, there are unconfirmed reports that she is one of the directors of a city-based cable network in the northern suburbs of Mumbai. Some of Sadhana’s family members, who are not on police records, are also linked to the cable company.

Abu Salem- Monica

According to mu-mbai police, Monica Bedi’s affair with Dawood Ibrahim’s former lieutenant, Abu Salem, began in the shimmering yet seedy world of Bollywood. While the former was struggling to get a toehold in the film industry, the latter was busy employing ever new coercive methods to extort fortunes from terrified producers, directors and actors.

Salem’s romance with Monica was not unusual. He was witness to many actresses visiting his mentor, Dawood, and had mastered the art of luring them to his own den. But in Monica’s case, it took a longer time for her to reach his door.

It is well known that Bedi arrived in Mumbai in 1996, to try her luck after abandoning a fledgling modelling career in Delhi. Her first friend in the industry was film producer Mukesh Duggal but after Duggal was shot dead the following year, a fallout of inter-gang rivalry in Mumbai, the aspiring actress befriended Salem. Salem was already declared a ‘don’ after he attained control of the vast underworld network stretching from Mumbai to Africa, Great Britain to the US.

With his new enterprise of the lucrative extortion in the film world, it was no surprise that producers’ doors opened up magically the moment his new friend Monica walked in. Overnight, the starlet was signed as the lead in at least three Bollywood potboilers before disappearing from the city. She surfaced last year, when she was spotted in Sharjah.

Last year, while investigating Salem and Monica (both had fled the UAE), the police discovered a new alias for the starlet — Fauzia Salem, duly registered in a passport from Bhopal. The police believe she acquired the identity after she married Salem. It is his third time.

Irfan Goga-Manisha

Irfan Goga’s wife Shaila alias Manisha could be labelled ‘‘the most beautiful of the mafia wives.’’ In fact, she was nicknamed Mamta Kulkarni in the underworld.

After Goga’s death in Dubai, apparently at the behest of the Dawood clan, Manisha joined hands with some members of the Babloo Shrivastva gang, whom she met during her visits to Mumbai. The Mumbai police arrested her in 1997, on charges of kidnapping a Malad-based restaurateur. The victim was released only after he coughed up Rs 5 lakh as ransom.

According to mafia lore, the dubious bar owner received a call from an unknown damsel, who cooed on the phone saying she had just returned from Dubai bearing presents from Dawood Ibrahim. When the unsuspecting hotelier went to meet her, he was taken hostage at gunpoint allegedly by Manisha and her henchmen. His relatives were then informed about his abduction. Despite her arrest, Manisha jumped bail and escaped.

Fair and pretty, Manisha told investigators in Mumbai that she was an athlete from Indore, and dreamed of becoming an actress. The ambitious girl even made a few trips to Dubai to woo the dons, to get her a break in films. It was during one such trip that Manisha met Irfan Goga, a gangster from northern Uttar Pradesh.

Goga, who was considered close to Abu Salem, disappeared under mysterious circumstance from Dubai on November 9, 1998. He went for a drive with Dawood’s brother Anees and another Pakistani and never returned. His mutilated body was later found in the sea. Manisha later lodged a complaint with the Dubai police.

Though 28 people were arrested, investigations drew a blank. Manisha was left with little choice but to head for India.

Anil Parab-Neha

Dawood Ibrahim’s key marksman Anil Parab was a known womaniser before he met Neha and married her. After a brief stay in the western suburbs of Ghatkopar, Mumbai, Parab alias Vangia fled to Dubai with Dawood after he was named in over a dozen killings in the city. The middle-class Gujarati girl soon followed her husband.

Though not much is known of what happened in Dubai but news of an illicit relationship began to spread and Parab began suspecting his wife, Neha.

The short yet formidable contract killer, known for his meticulous and patient planning, hatched a plot to kill her in 1994. Neha was asked to go to Mumbai on a hawala deal. She was escorted from the airport by one of Parab’s associates to Kurla. Parab’s henchman made a call to Dubai and made Neha speak to her husband, who told her that she was about to be killed for betraying him.

Neha’s body was recovered by the police near Bombay University campus in Kalina. Parab is still absconding in Dubai and is believed to own a tailoring shop there.

Arun Gawli-Asha

Zubeda Mujawar was still in school when she came on a holiday from Vadgaon Pir village, near Pune, to visit her sister at Dagdi Chawl in Mumbai. Little did she know she would end up marrying the neighbour, Arun Gawli, who later turned out to be one of Mumbai’s dreaded gangsters. Gawli was then a lieutenant of Rama Naik and his new bride came to be known as Asha Gawli.

After Naik’s brutal death, Gawli became the don and his associates hailed him as ‘Daddy’ in some absurd, respectful way. Though 12 years his junior, Asha naturally became ‘Mummy.’

Police claim the young Asha took over the gang’s activities after Gawli was flung into prison, but the fact remains Gawli’s men looked to ‘Mummy’ with respect and that she wielded tremendous power within the 600-strong organisation.

Asha came into the spotlight for the first time after the police crashed into the Gawli fortress in Dagdi Chawl and arrested him. She sprearheaded a Free-Gawli campaign and held press conferences, fearing her husband would be killed in a fake encounter. It was not long before she was arrested too, accused of conspiring to kill a builder. Gawli sought safety in Asha’s family home after he was externed from the city in 1998. He fathered a son during his stay there and Asha soon retreated into the background after Gawli returned to Dagdi Chawl.

Guru Satnam-Laxmi

Ganglord Guru Satam’s childhood sweetheart Laxmi Soni is still single at 40 years. She prefers to conduct operations for her overseas boyfriend rather than marry someone from her community.

Crime branch sleuths arrested Laxmi from her dingy Jawalkar Mansion apartment in Parel for collecting protection money on behalf of the Satam gang. Being a don’s mistress is no easy task for Laxmi. She has to liaise with the henchmen and keep account of the booty.

Laxmi says she fell in love with Satam when they were in school in Parel and continued to be loyal to him despite his career. But as the gang wars began to heat up in Central Mumbai, Satam was left with little choice but to flee. He joined hands with Chhota Rajan and Laxmi’s young brother, Raju, also joined his sister’s lover.

Though Satam is married and a father of two married children, Laxmi is still at his side. A fact disclosed during police investigations early this year.

Laxmi continues to remain in Mumbai despite the fact she owns a palatial house in Agra, her hometown. Police say her present location is ideally suited as most of her henchmen are Mumbai locals.