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COVER
STORY: GANG WARS
A
Bloody Sideshow
Since
then the Rajan vs Dawood battle has become a sideshow, albeit a bloody
one, of the proxy war being waged between India and Pakistan. As R.H.
Mendonca, now DG (ACB) Maharashtra Police and former commissioner, Mumbai,
puts it, "It is no longer a battle between criminal gangs. It is
much larger and there is a clear involvement of elements from outside
the country inimical to national interest."
The immediate
provocation for the attack was the busting of a fake US dollar currency
racket run by Dawood's aides by the Interpol and a US agency in December
1999. It led to the arrest of two of Dawood's influential agents in Thailand.
Next Rajan's people exposed Akbar Sha, a key associate of Dawood. Sha,
a Pakistani drug trafficker, was killed in a police encounter.
Since December
Dawood's men have been tracking Rajan's movements with information dredged
out of Mumbai's underworld. Rajan has subsequently been spotted among
other places in Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. But the decision
to pin him down in Bangkok came after men belonging to the Chhota Shakeel
faction found that Verma had set up shop along with a Thai national dealing
in ceramics in downtown Bangkok. On August 31, the first batch of operatives
arrived from Karachi with clear instructions: bring Rajan to Karachi or
eliminate him.
Saleem,
who came in the first batch with three others, used local help to comb
Bangkok. Within days, Verma, known for his rather flashy lifestyle, was
spotted and his residence located. Now four more shooters arrived from
Karachi. On September 11, the team of 10 (four Pakistanis, four Indians
and two Thais) hired an apartment at Amree Court adjacent to Charan Court
where Verma had rented a flat under the assumed name of Michael D'Souza.
The conspirators
even found a flat that overlooked the front gate of Charan Court enabling
them to keep a close watch on their quarry. Apparently, they waited a
couple of days for the right opportunity before striking.
And when
they did strike, the fierce attack in which close to 100 rounds were fired,
stunned even the Thai police. As Colonel Manthan Apaivongs, superintendent
of Thanglore police station and main investigation officer, said, "It
seems the gang war in the Indian subcontinent has extended to Bangkok.
We have never seen such a case of vengeance and retaliation. It is more
than mere business or gang rivalry."
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