For India’s fugitive gangsters, home is where the hope is

Call it a reverse brain drain in the Mumbai underworld. Just as NRIs have been taking the plane back to their motherland in search of better economic stability, fugitives from the Mumbai underworld, who fled the country in the ’80s and the ’90s want to come back now.

But unlike NRI professionals or businessmen, they are returning not in search of economic opportunity, but to clear pending cases against themselves so that they can start afresh, without having to keep running from the law. As it turns out, the majority of the gangsters extradited to India have been acquitted in the cases against them and gone scot free.

According to an Intelligence Bureau (IB) official, in recent months, several telephonic conversations have been intercepted wherein fugitive gangsters were heard asking their lawyers to find out about the cases against them, and ascertain how much time they’d need to spend in Indian jails before they can get bail or get acquitted.

“Gangsters like Guru Satam, Hemant Pujari, Yeda Yakub, Salim Talwaar and Salim Chiplun (the last three are wanted in 1993 serial blasts case) have been enquiring about the status of the cases pending against them. They want to know about their options if they were to be deported to India,” said a police officer from the Mumbai crime branch. “There are a few other high profile gangsters as well, but their names can’t be revealed at this stage.”

According to the police, fugitive gangsters want to come back because nearly all such criminals deported to India in the past decade are roaming free, and have no cases pending against them. “More than 25 ‘most wanted’ gangsters were deported to India in the last ten years, but only a handful of them are in jail today. All the others, including Dawood Ibrahim’s brother Iqbal Kaskar, have either been acquitted or are out on bail,” said a senior police officer.

“In November 2007, ten gangsters were deported from Dubai in a special aircraft of the Indian Air Force. They were brought to Mumbai and booked under the stringent MCOCA. But due to weak evidence, all 10 were acquitted,” said defence advocate Rajesh Shrivastava.

“Deported gangsters are not getting convicted because most of the cases that they are wanted in are very old, some of them more than 20 years old. In such cases, either the physical evidence is not available, or the witnesses or victims are not traceable or just not interested anymore,” said a public prosecutor on conditions of anonymity.  

“In some cases, the investigating officers have either retired or been transferred out of Mumbai,” he added.
So naturally, gangsters want to exploit the situation and clear their criminal record, said a police officer. Gangsters like Iqbal Kaskar and Tariq Parveen have been cleared in all the cases against them, while Abu Salem has been acquitted in all except the 1993 serial blast case. “Even the evidence available against the recently deported gangster, Santosh Shetty, is poor and unless the police come up with something extraordinary, he too is likely to go scot-free,” said a crime branch officer on conditions of anonymity.
Mirchi wanted to return too

Interestingly, last month, fugitive gangster Iqbal Mirchi, who is shown wanted in the 1993 serial bomb blast case, was arrested for an attempt to murder case in London. The Indian police did not even attempt to pursue his extradition because if sources are to be believed, the quality of evidence against Mirchi is poor and an earlier attempt, in 1994, to extradite him had failed.

According to an IB official, in an interview with a local newspaper in London, Mirchi had reportedly rued opposing his extradition in 1994. According to Mirchi, if he had come to India, then he too would have been cleared in all cases and become a free man.