ISLANDS OF INFLUENCE

Mumbai’s dons have carved the city into their respective territories of dominance

year. But the fear of death still hangs over her. Haseena keeps a small automatic pistol in her purse.

Iqbal’s release from jail coincided with Haseena’s appearance on the police radar. In April 2007, a builder, Vinod Avlani, filed a police complaint accusing her of threatening him over a realty deal gone sour. The police filed a case against Haseena. The metropolitan court issued an arrest warrant. She was a step ahead. Haseena made a dramatic appearance in the sessions court in May 2007, leading an entourage of burqa-clad women to claim anticipatory bail. She could be identified only when she signed on the antic- ipatory bail application, lifting her burqa for a split second before the judge. She was granted bail. The case continues in the sessions court.

Haseena’s lawyer Shyam Keswani, who has known her for seven years, describes her as a “God-fearing woman who does not interfere in her brothers’ affairs”. “She has suffered a lot in life. After her husband’s death, her son Danish died in a road accident in 2006 near Alibag. She stays close to the Nagpada Police Station. The police have her phone number and address. What have they got against her so far? Nothing!” he says. Keswani denies that Haseena runs Dawood’s real estate

DAWOOD’S AIDE-TURNED-DEADLY FOE RAJAN SENDS HASEENAA RAKHI EVERYYEAR. BUT SHE STILL KEEPS A SMALLAUTOMATIC PISTOL IN HER PURSE.

business. “She is a school dropout. How can she run Dawood’s business? There has been no police case against her in the past few years. She gets rent from her tenants. Why would she live in Nagpada if she had lots of money?” Keswani plans to move the metropolitan court to get her discharged from the 2007 case.

While Haseena and Iqbal milk the Dawood family surname, Zubair Khan, 34, is uncomfortable with it. He married Haseena’s daughter Sana in 2005. The TV journalist-turned-filmmaker has his first film ready for release. Lakeer ke Fakeer is about three smalltime hoodlums from Nagpada. Zubair skips family functions and has not spoken to his mother-in-law Haseena since his marriage, an arranged one. “I married Sana, not her family,” he says of their blood-soaked legacy.

“Mumbai today is a bit like the 1970s when dons like Haji Mastan, Karim Lala and Varadarajan Mudaliar carved their areas of influence,” says an associate of Dawood’s lieutenant Chhota Shakeel. “The gangs stay in their territories. There is no violence anymore because everyone—politicians, builders, police and the underworld—makes money,” he says.

Insiders whisper that the Kaskars still have connections in the Mumbai Police. Iqbal was encouraged to move back to Mumbai by Aslam Momin, a former police inspector with the Crime Branch who was summarily dismissed from his job in 2005 after the police recorded incriminating conversations between him and Iqbal.

Keswani claims the brother-sister duo is targeted because the police cannot get Dawood: “Dawood is not very clean but why did the police not get evidence against him?” Senior Crime Branch officers say Dawood’s extradition is now a political matter, far beyond the pale of the Mumbai Police. Another small-time businessman friend of Iqbal claims the police just look the other way. “They told us: Do what you want to, but just ensure there’s no shooting. If shots are fired, then we will be forced to move in,” he says. A tough act when Mumbai’s first family of crime calls the shots.