KOCHI: The story of tobacco baron Mohammed Nisham from the lap of luxuries to the darkness of prison is nothing short of a thriller. His phenomenal journey from the small village of Muttichoor on the outskirts of Thrissur to the maze of money-spinning tobacco deals and illegal activities happened in record time.
Nisham, who was sentenced to life imprisonment and an additional 24 years in jail by the Thrissur Additional Sessions Court on Thursday for murdering Chandrabose, a security guard, recently rose to the league of habitual offenders and earned the moniker ‘Ferrari Dad’ after he was booked in April 2013 for letting his nine-year-old son drive his Ferrari. The court has also imposed a fine of `71,30,000 on Nisham.
On January 29, 2015, at midnight he fatally knocked down Chandrabose, at the posh apartment complex in Thrissur where he lived. Nisham hit the guard with his Hummer for not opening the gate for him quickly.
As many as 16 cases had been registered against Nisham in Kerala and neighbouring states for various offences. However, despite the cases, he was not remanded in judicial custody even for a single day, until he was arrested for murdering Chandrabose.
A Rajdoot bike owned by Nisham and parked at his ancestral house at Muttichoor, with the replica of a human skeleton and skull strapped on to it, says volumes about the state of his mind. Nisham expanded his realm from the flourishing tobacco business to other ventures, ranging from owning a hotel in Dubai to jewellery businesses in the Middle East/Kerala and realty.
A top police officer said Nisham, who is the MD of TN-based King Beedi Co, had an obsession for luxury vehicles. He owned a fleet of cars, including Bentley, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, Range Rover, Ferrari and Jaguar.
“It is astonishing that he managed to escape even after harassing a woman police officer on duty by locking her inside his Rolls Royce in 2014 after she stopped his vehicle during a routine inspection,” said former Thrissur City police commissioner R Nishanthini.
When the police reached Bengaluru to check his whereabouts and his criminal antecedents, they stumbled upon an incident in which Nisham inflicted injuries on a Kannada actress who lodged a rape complaint against him. The actress, who narrated the sadistic torture by Nisham to the investigation officers, said it was not worth sharing the details as the whole episode was full of perverted torture. “If he is drunk, he would not allow anyone to overtake his vehicle. Nisham would often beat his friends and then pay them hefty amounts for each blow he delivered,” he said.
His clout in the police force was evident from the expose of former Chief Whip P C George, who disclosed that Kerala DGP (law and order) K S Balasubramaniam had tried to shield him. The IT Department refused to hold a formal investigation into Nisham’s financial transactions. When the matter was brought to the notice of the officials, they said the IT Department in TN was looking into the issue. It is estimated that the annual turnover of Nisham’s tobacco and real estate business is around `1,600 crore.