Voices anand neelakantan ajai sahni Ravi Shankar Debashis Chatterjee anu aggarwal Mata Amritanandamayi MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment NEW DELHI October 27 2024 SUNDAY PAGES 12 The New Don The master criminal today has changed into a tech-savvy social media maven with a patriotic bent. But his tools of fear remain the same: threats, kidnapping, extortion and murder V By Gautam S Mengle ijay 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 curi. ous, 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. “ of them All 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 Turn to page 2 AI illustrations 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. The angry young nationalist man has suddenly found his new icon