New Don
Vijay Bajpai (name changed) is 35 years old. He drives a fleet cab in Mumbai, is a real estate broker on the side, and is conscious enough to stock his cab with drinking water and nuts to munch on through the day. His Hindi is mixed with a lot of English, and he is innately curious, wanting to know what ‘MHADA’ stands for as he passes the signboard for the state’s housing authority. But the most passionate he is, is when he talks about his new idol—Lawrence Bishnoi. His monologue begins without invitation—he takes care to ask his passenger’s name before starting. The next sentence out of his mouth is, “This place has turned upside down.”
The place he is referring to is the bustling suburb of Bandra in western Mumbai, and it has turned upside down because of the murder of veteran Nationalist Congress Party leader Baba Siddique mere days earlier. Siddique was exiting his son’s office in Bandra East when he was gunned down, despite having been provided with police protection, and succumbed to his injuries at the Lilavati Hospital.
A day later, an alleged member of the Bishnoi gang credited the gang for the murder on social media, saying that the 66-year-old political leader was killed because of his links to actor Salman Khan. The post went viral and within an hour, social media was abuzz with reactions. Among others, the most notable observation was that the angry young nationalist man had suddenly found his new icon. “That Salman Khan,” says Bajpai as he drives, “he had insulted Sonu Nigam in a public function. Why? Because Nigam spoke about the loudspeakers mounted over mosques. Now see what happened? This is what Bishnoi is.”
The sentiment is one echoed by lakhs of youth across the country, who have commented on videos of Lawrence Bishnoi being taken in and out of court. Some of these videos are paired with the latest Indian gangster rap songs, others with songs connected to patriotism. Decades after the traditional organised crime gangs petered out, the Indian criminal underworld seems to have a new bhai in the making.
“Every day, we’re logging hundreds of social media posts or reactions to them in the form of comments, likes and reposts,” a senior cybercrime officer from Delhi says. “All of them hail Bishnoi as the ‘sher ko sawwa sher’; the hero that finally tamed Salman Khan. It hasn’t taken long for his supporters to start targeting the entire community, and anybody who tries to present facts is trolled. Community pages are springing up all over social media and the main task at hand right now is to ascertain which of them are actual gang members and which are just supporters.”
The cyber law enforcement machinery extracts a major bulk of its intelligence from sweeps of social media platforms and currently, the police are watching the trend with growing concern. The challenge for the police is also to keep a tab but not validate the posts by reacting to them officially. When the social media post claiming credit for Baba Siddique’s murder was put out, the only official reaction from the Mumbai Police was, “We are aware of a social media post, and are verifying it.”
The tools may have changed, but the underlying principles are the same—the combination of providing a messiah to those looking for one, and striking fear in the hearts of those who refuse to believe. Right from the very first ‘don’ in Mumbai, Haji Mastan, who rose to power by settling disputes and brokering peace—even if it was by intimidation—and offering protection; then came the young upstart, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, and fear replaced respect as the primary principle.
“Not just Dawood,” says retired Assistant Commissioner of Police Iqbal Sheikh, “but even the other gangsters of the day, who were his rivals, worked with the same principle. And they were fully aware of the fear they commanded, and capitalised on it, too. The D-gang, in fact, had a ‘calling specialist’ in the form of Faheem Mach Mach, a foul-mouthed gangster who was assigned the job of calling up the gang’s extortion targets and putting the fear of God into them.”
Sheikh was part of the original Anti-Terrorism Squad constituted by the late AA Khan to deal with the rising menace of Khalistani extremism in Mumbai. The same squad was later tasked with curbing the activities of organised crime gangs, and went on to conduct the Lokhandwala encounter in 1991.
Faheem Ahmed Sharif, who died reportedly of Covid-19-related complications at the age of 51 in 2021, earned the sobriquet of Mach Mach for his way of incessantly badgering his extortion targets with curses and threats. He would open the conversation with the choicest of abuses before moving on to rattling off all information about the target—where his wife shopped, where his kids played, where his office was, etc.—and then come to the demand of money. For the average white-collar industrialist or builder, the language would be a culture shock, and the gangster spouting details about their family would often bring them to tears.
So adept was Faheem at striking fear into the hearts of his victims, that he rose rapidly through the ranks and became a favourite of Dawood’s right-hand man, Shakeel Babumiyan Sheikh alias Chhota Shakeel. Soon, Shakeel would personally brief Faheem on who was to be extorted next. He went on to join his bosses in Dubai, and later in Karachi, after they shifted bases.
A former D-gang member, who now runs a cafeteria in an industrial complex in Mumbai, reminisces about the ‘good old days’ over endless cups of black tea from his own cafeteria, and the occasional cigarette.
“In those days, it was either Faheem Mach Mach or Firoz Konkani,” he says, adding, “Where Mach Mach would hit you with a barrage of words, Konkani, if assigned your ‘case’, would shoot you in cold blood.”
Infamous for the murder of BJP leader Ramdas Nayak, Konkani was 16 when he committed his first murder, and no less than 180 gangland related murders are credited to him. He was all of 20 years old when he gunned down Nayak with an AK-47 assault rifle in broad daylight in 1994. He was arrested in 1996, but managed to flee in an escape that was as daring as his crime. D-gang members opened fire on the police vehicle while Konkani was being taken for a medical check-up, and Konkani escaped with them.
“While D had Konkani, Arun Gawli had Sada Pawle. He was known as an equally ruthless and cold-blooded killer, because he preferred to stab people to death rather than shoot them. He refused to touch guns when most of us first started using them, and he was known to stab his targets repeatedly, even as the blood sprayed out of their bodies,” the former gangster says.
Pawle was known as Sada Mama in the Gawli gang, and this was significant because after Gawli, who was called Daddy—his wife (Mummy) and his brother (Pappa)—Pawle was the only one to be conferred with a title in the gang. He was also the only one who actually defied Gawli, sometimes murdering non-compliant extortion targets in full public view against Gawli’s instructions, with no consequences. It was just the kind of terror that he commanded. The rule was that if Mama was angry, you got out of his way.
While some relied on the messiah complex and fear factor, an unlikely formula that seemed to work, at least with limited results, for some others: patriotism and religion.
When Dawood was publicly declared as an accused in connection with the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, his once trusted deputy, Rajendra Nikhalje alias Chhota Rajan, lost no time making hay just as the sun had begun shining. Rajan had parted ways with Dawood after learning that Shakeel, and several others, were getting increasingly jealous of his rising importance in the gang and had planned to bump him off. In the dead of the night, he fled the gang’s hideout in Dubai and started his own gang. And just like that, a “Hindu don” was born.
While Shakeel and his cohorts made it known that Rajan had fled under the cover of the dark like a coward, Rajan told anyone who would listen that he could never work with someone responsible for the cold-blooded murder of so many Indians.
Over the next one decade, amid the bitter war between the two gangs, Rajan also discovered a new weapon—the news media. It became commonplace to hear his voice on TV news channels, giving interviews about how he sanctioned a hit on a certain builder or businessman because they are Dawood financiers and hence, funding terror. The young men of Tilak Nagar in Chembur, where Rajan grew up before his rise as a criminal, erupted in celebration every time an interview was aired. The annual Ganeshotsav festival in Tilak Nagar still proudly boasts a hoarding of Rajan every year.
Over 20 years after the most famous break-up in underworld history, the debate still rages on: Did Rajan call himself a ‘patriotic don’, which was hijacked and turned into ‘Hindu’; or was it the other way round?
Whatever the case, it worked, not only for Rajan but for Gawli too. In 1995, in a public rally at the Shivaji Park, the late Balasaheb Thackeray had declared, “If they (the Congress) have that fellow from Dubai, we have our man in Byculla.” Religion had entered organised crime
The same support is now being enjoyed by the cult criminal Bishnoi, especially after he started targeting Salman Khan. While Bishnoi’s claim is that he has sworn revenge against the actor for killing a blackbuck—sacred to the Bishnoi community—he is already being hailed as the new hero by right wing supporters on social media.
“It is important to note that Bishnoi himself has never actually made such a claim in his own voice,” says retired ACP Ramesh Mahale, who spent a large part of his service in the Mumbai Crime Branch. “But it doesn’t take long for stories to gather meat in the telling, and I suspect Bishnoi is fully aware of this. It is the people who support Bishnoi who are talking more about him being a ‘Hindu’ don. One day it is about Salman Khan, then it is anyone who supports Dawood, and so on and so forth. At the end of the day, these are just claims; attempts to become famous and make a name for oneself.”
Mahale’s dismissive stance is shared by many, not just about Bishnoi but also about Rajan and later, Ravi Pujari. One of the many by-products of the Dawood-Rajan rivalry, Pujari went with Rajan when the two split. However, after the near-fatal attack on Rajan in Bangkok in 2000, he became paranoid and started suspecting everyone around him of having informed Shakeel about his whereabouts. Soon, he started voicing his suspicions out loud and slowly, all of his once trusted lieutenants started walking away from his gang. Pujari was one of them.
In 2014, numerous crime reporters received phone calls from none other than Pujari himself. “Did you hear?” he asked. Hear what? they wondered. “About the Moranis!” Again, what about them, the confused reporters asked. Finally, an exasperated Pujari told them how he had sent men to open fire at the gate of the residence of producer Karim Morani in western Mumbai.
The calls sparked off a chain reaction, with the reporters first calling the police, who had no idea about any shots being fired. Some called up the Moranis, who were equally clueless. Those who were closest reached their residence and the security guard manning the gate had no idea what they were talking about.
Hours later, the police reached the spot and started a search. There were no eye witnesses, but there was a dent in a parked car and a hole in a tree. It took eight days to recover a spent shell casing from near the house. The entire progression of events was gleefully covered by the media. And from that time onwards, Google became Pujari’s favourite weapon. Every time he would call his targets to extort them, he’d say, “If you think I’m joking, Google my name.” Thanks to the incessant coverage of his activities, coupled with Search Engine Optimisation, the internet placed articles about him in the same category as those about Dawood and Rajan; and these names showed up in the ‘People Also Searched For’ category when one searched for Pujari’s name.
Just like Bishnoi, Pujari had his priorities straight—he went for the big names. From the Moranis, he moved on to Mahesh Bhatt and then, to industrialist Ness Wadia. When news of the rift between Ness and his ex-flame Priety Zinta started doing the rounds, the telephone operator at Nusli Wadia’s office was stupefied to receive a call from Pujari.
The gangster first asked to speak to the senior Wadia and on being told the latter was not in, left a message: “Usko bol uske bete aur Preity ke matter mein nahi padneka. Mai Preity ka fan hai, Preity ko mera support hai. (Tell him not to interfere in the dispute between his son and Preity. I am her fan, she has my support).”
Three different officers refused to comment on Pujari’s antics. “He wasn’t worth it then, and he definitely isn’t worth it now,” said one.
Cut to the present day, when social media is already drawing up a list of the next targets on Bishnoi’s purported list. These include stand-up comics, politicians and fact-checkers, all of them in some way or the other looked on unfavourable by the right wing. In the last one week alone, some of the terms used to describe Bishnoi include 'sher', 'Khalistaniyon ka baap' and 'krantikari yuvak'. His name or related hashtags have been trending on X ever since Siddique’s murder.
“Social media has changed the game for sure,” says Abhishek Kumar, senior fact-checker and researcher with Alt News. Kumar has been following the rise of the ‘dons’ on social media and has tracked the trajectory of numerous such figures from all over India.
“The one surefire way for those looking to make a name is to post videos of themselves committing crimes like assaulting people on camera, for a ‘cause’ that resonates with the masses. Unfortunately, religion and caste top the list when it comes to such causes. It takes one video to make such people a sensation and the next thing you know, they’re being invited to inaugurate shops in their villages,” says Kumar.
He cites examples of people like Raja Hero from Madhepura, Bihar (his Instagram bio proclaims him as the king of Madhepura), and Bhokaal Mithilanchal from Darbhanga, Bihar. They now have rallies of 500 bikers in their support and local ‘reporters’ interviewing them every few days.
In Bishnoi’s case, he adds, it is the supporters more than the icon himself who keep the torch burning on social media. People are talking about caste, religion, Bollywood, the “real big boss” etc., and at the centre of it all is Lawrence Bishnoi.
“I got a message on Instagram saying that I am on his hit list as well,” Kumar chuckles.
There are open calls to support and hail the gangster who, on top of everything else, is running a global syndicate of 650 shooters, according to the National Investigation Agency, while being lodged inside the Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
“Nothing new,” says Sheikh, adding, “Being in prisons stopped deterring criminal elements from running their gangs long ago. There have always been instances of a nexus between prisoners and prison staff. One of the five people killed in the 1991 Lokhandwala encounter was a constable with the Prisons department. He was present in the flat with gangsters Maya Dolas and Dilip Buwa when the encounter happened.”
In 2009, a Borivali-based builder had just left for his office when armed assailants started surrounding his vehicle. In a rare display of guts and composure, the builder hit the accelerator and drove straight into the compound of the Kasturba Marg police station. The attackers fled, but the Crime Branch started an investigation, arrested the shooters and their paymasters, and traced the threads of the ‘supari’ all the way to the Hindalga Central Jail in Belgavi. The man pulling the strings was none other than Yusuf Suleiman Qadri alias Yusuf Bachkana, a former Rajan hand, who was using the prison as recruiting grounds for Pujari.
And if you think you need to be a Rajan or a Pujari to be operating from prison, think again. In February 2020, a lanky man in his mid-30s calmly walked up to a medical store in Kurar, Malad (East). Wordlessly, he whipped out a countrymade gun and let loose several rounds at the shop as well as a jewellery store next to it. Even as the employees dove for cover and people on the street starting running away, the shooter dipped into his pocket, came out with four handwritten notes, dropped them on the ground and walked away. All four notes had a single name written on them—Uday Pathak.
The gangster’s name still evokes dreaded reactions in Malad. He is currently in prison, serving a life sentence for a quadruple murder that he allegedly committed along with his gang members in 2011. The four members of a rival gang were forced inside SUVs and taken into the forest area near Kurar, where they were assaulted, tortured, dismembered and their bodies hung on trees for the people to find the next morning. Pathak has since then been trying to establish himself as the new bhai of Mumbai. His last attempt was in 2022, when a Kurar-based businessman received a letter in the mail saying, “Jai Mata Di. Uday Pathak says hello. Keep one crore ready.”
And what is going to be Bishnoi’s next move? If Vijay Bajpai, the cabbie, is to be believed, the next target is already decided. “You know that stand-up comic who speaks a lot about Hindus and Hindu gods? Agla number uska hai,” he says calmly, as he changes gears and switches lanes.