The 'Rajan' of dons in '80s

My encounter

Dressed in immaculate whites — at times in safaris - an imported cigarette dangling between his lips, Vardarajan Munnaswamy Mudaliar aka Vardabhai looked every inch what he was.

The emerging mascot of Mumbai’s mafia ganglands. A far cry from the relatively less harmful predecessors like Kareem Lala, Vardabha became something of a cult figure with a ruthless streak hitherto not seen. Little wonder then that film folks forever keen to exploit the black glamour behind the murky underworld’s larger-than-life characters, glorified him as a modern-day Robinhood.

By 1983, Vardabhai was looked upon as a demigod in areas like Dadar, Matunga, King’s Circle and Dharavi — a ‘saviour’ of have-nots. The image was, of course, deceptive. As vicious as they come, his mere presence sent chills down the spine of the locals. Even the cops were in awe of him, many on his payroll. That was when the police-criminal nexus came to the fore as a frightening reality.

Top echelons among the police watched with concern as Vardabhai’s sphere of influence grew. Though the then police commissioner Julio Rebeiro and Zonal Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) YC Pawar had launched a major offensive against him, their subordinates often brought this battle to a nought, leaking crucial inside information to him and enabling him to wriggle out.

Unlike Lala, Vardabhai seemed to understand legal matters. Through his cronies, he filed several private cases against Pawar, who had to make regular rounds of courts and face humiliation as a result. Working on the crime beat then with a south Mumbai-based newspaper, I got information that a mediator had arranged for a secret meeting between the don and two senior inspectors of police. I used my contacts with the mediator and managed to record the 80-minute conversation between the cops and the don.

I was dying with curiosity to know what had transpired between the cops and the don. I did not have a tape recorder, so I took the cassette to the Press Club to prepare a written text of the conversation.

The cassette was as damaging as it could get. The two cops sang praises of the don while using choicest expletives against Ribeiro and Pawar. I took the cassette to then assistant commissioner of police, crime branch RV Dhond. To say that he was taken aback after hearing it, would be an understatement. He took me to S Venkatachalam, then additional commissioner, crime.

By that time it was late night and Venkatachalam spoke to Ribeiro, who summoned all of us to his Malabar Hill residence. We reached his house around 9pm and found Ribeiro pacing anxiously, waiting for us.

Once the tape started playing and the abuses could be heard loudly, Rebeiro started shivering with anger. Muttering between his breath, he picked up the phone and ordered immediate suspension of the two. One in-charge of Matunga police station and the other, in-charge of Antop Hill police station.

One thing came clearly though from the recorded conversation. The officers had played into the hands of the don who had succeeded in extracting information that he wanted.

Having suspended the two cops summarily, Rebeiro turned to me. “What do you plan to do now? Defame the entire police force just because two b…..ds hobnobbed with a criminal? Are you for the cops or the criminals?”

I could understand his concern. He looked to be a man swimming against the tide given that his own men had betrayed their commitment to the uniform. I paused for a moment, and replied, “I will settle for the lesser evil”.

The cops dropped me at my Nariman Point office and the front page of the next day’s edition screamed through a banner headline “Kissa Cassette Ka- Cops in conversation with don suspended”.