Author:
Publication: The Navhind Times
Date: February 8, 2002
They employ a whopping 4,000 men
and women, and their multi-million-dollar empire stretches across the globe,
from Hong Kong to North America, matching the dreaded Italian Mafiosi and
Colombian cartels.
From their humble beginning in the
1970s in Mumbai, the underworld has grown to be a multinational Goliath,
ready to go to any extreme to make billions of dollars that keeps its vast
criminal kingdom running.
The two main - and rival - mafia
gangs have spread their tentacles around the world and are enmeshed in
all kinds of illegalities: smuggling, narcotics, prostitution, protection
rackets, extortion, abductions and contract killings.
A senior police officer has recorded
their birth, growth and growing tentacles.
Mr P M Nair, an inspector-general
of police based in Patna, identified the bosses of the two underworld gangs
as Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan, who are known in police files as "D
Company" and "R Company" respectively.
The government has been pressing
Pakistan to handover Ibrahim, who New Delhi says lives in Karachi after
fleeing his base in the West Asia is wanted for a wave of terrorist bombings
that rocked Mumbai in March 1993, killing more than 250 people.
"Dawood Ibrahim runs... the largest
underworld in India with his networking in several countries including
Pakistan, Nepal, the West Asia and many cities in India, including New
Delhi," says Mr Nair in his book, Combating Organised Crime (Konark Publishers).
His men, the officer says, also operate in London.
His main rival, Chhota Rajan, a
former associate of Dawood who fell out with him after the 1993 bombings,
has its base in Malaysia and operates from several places including Hong
Kong, Singapore and Nepal. His men have carried out scores of murders,
especially of Dawood supporters, financiers and promoters.
Today, the gang's tentacles extend
to illegal financing of construction activities, film productions, offering
protection to rival industrial houses, extortion, prostitution dens and
illegal cable operators.
The D Company, with alleged strong
links to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, is also said to
be adept at creating or fermenting violence between Hindus and Muslims
in the country.
Mr Nair, formerly with the Central
Bureau of Investigation, said mafia dons have come to acquire so much power
because they gained political clout after politicians used them to win
elections or to defeat their enemies. The gangs ended up getting support
of the winning politicians.
In times to come, with politicians
ready to save them from tricky situations, the gangs began expanding their
operations, targeting more and more victims, and in the process becoming
more and more powerful.
The gangsters take protection money
from shopkeepers and all types of businessmen and even pavement dwellers.
"Even smugglers have to give protection money to the organised criminal."
The Patna-based IGP says money laundering
by the syndicates has far-reaching consequences related to national security.
He says that their networks extend to East Africa, Europe, Hong Kong, India,
the West Asia, Nepal, North America, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore,
Sri Lanka and Thailand.
"Huge amounts on money come from
hawala (illegal transfers of money) too, especially from the world of buying
and selling goods. Illegal importation and exportation are facilitated
through the hawala route."
Dawood, the son of a former policeman
in Mumbai, left India in 1984 on being released on bail in a murder case,
and for years lived opulently abroad.
The gang members are wanted in several
criminal cases including murder and arson in Mumbai and other cities in
the country.
Mr Nair says: "The animosity which
(Dawood) has created, augmented by the tremendous power and clout he wields
in the international arena, his vast empire of illegal estates, drugs,
arms and misdirected human resources, constitutes a real threat to the
social fabric."
