Investigative journalist Hussain Zaidi’s book on the life of underworld don Abu Salem is a must-read account, which delves deep into a nexus of organised crime operations in India, in a well-research and detail-oriented way, writes ANANYA BORGOHAIN
The Mumbai underworld had radically altered the culture and landscape of the city a couple of decades back. It controlled industries and spread terror using brute force. While our films may concentrate on glamourising the mafia lifestyle, organised crime operates on dynamics far grander and dangerous than our expectations. The ‘Indian mafia’, often a designation for a consortium of a nexus of organised crime in India, was a mass hysteria in the 1990s. The infamous D-Company, a cartel controlled by Dawood Ibrahim, is said to have initiated a syndicate of terrorist networks responsible for some gargantuan horrific events, including the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts.
Considered to be “India’s no.1 crime writer”, senior investigative journalist Hussain Zaidi’s most recent book is a biography of one such underworld don, Abu Salem. Zaidi has previously been a journalist for organisations such as The Asian Age, The Indian Express, Mumbai Mirror, Mid-Day etc. and has authored books namely Black Friday (which was adapted on screen by Anurag Kashyap), Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia, Mafia Queens of Mumbai: Stories of Women from the Ganglands (with Jane Borges), Headley and I and Byculla to Bangkok. Titled My Name is Abu Salem, this project has not gone well with Zaidi’s muse and Salem wants the book banned. As of now, the ban on the book has been lifted.
My first question to Zaidi was what the Mumbai underworld’s foothold in the city is today. He says, “It is no longer as active as it was in the most violent times in the 1990s. Dawood Ibrahim is no longer majorly involved in the Mumbai mafia scene; Arun Gawli and Abu Salem are both in jail. Occasionally, Ravi Pujari creates trouble, they say. But many feared dons have retired and the mafia does not have the grip that it used to have, say, two decades back.” In that case, one wonders why he would choose jailed gangster Abu Salem as the subject of his book. Zaidi says, “After Dongri to Dubai, I was told that my books focussed on Muslim gangsters and not Maharashtrian dons. So I had to write Byculla to Bangkok, and now I have finished my trilogy with My Name is Abu Salem. I thought if I have to write about the Mumbai underworld and a Maharashtrian don, then the most apt character for the same would be Abu Salem. His persona is composite with a variety of dimensions, and colourful ones at that.” Zaidi does go in detail to demonstrate the rise and fall of Salem, who, in the epitome of irony, is the son of a noted criminal lawyer.
This book traces Salem’s growth from working at a shop to being a minimal gang member to being the mastermind of several heinous crimes, at times with international consequences. It entails details of his personal life vis-à-vis his professional operations and the lives he led in Mumbai, Dubai, Portugal, United States etc. It narrates his miserable life in Indian jail as well which was under perpetual threat and attacks. It also recounts his multiple marriages and his fondness for several Bollywood starlets, most prominently for actress Monica Bedi whom, Zaidi believes, Salem had married too. The Abu-Monica love story is an integral and crucial track in the book. There is also a mention about his extra-marital affair with a major beauty queen of the 1990s; no prizes for guessing who that is!
Interestingly, our films too have glamourised gangsters to a large extent. Gangster films, albeit less explored, are a genre in their own in the Mumbai film industry. Zaidi opines, “I think Bollywood films show dons as role models; it’s too filmy than it is in real life. They are shown to have a golden heart and argue that these people are victims of circumstances. But in that case, why doesn’t everybody who has suffered in life become a criminal and start killing peopleIJ” His film Black Friday too was made into a film. He adds, “Black Friday was not a gangster film; it was based on a network of terrorism; on the Mumbai serial blasts.”
One of the most recurring facets mentioned in the book is Salem’s megalomania and extreme narcissism. Apparently, Salem thought very highly of himself and splurged on grandiose facades. His fixation with the Hindi film industry too is well documented. His love-hate relationship with Sanjay Dutt is fascinating to read about, right from the moment when Salem meets his absolute icon Dutt for the first time at the latter’s residence to deliver arms, to a point in time when the same Dutt is being hunted by Salem because he had earlier tipped off Salem’s rival Chota Shakeel about Salem’s presence at an event and Shakeel had planned to end his game.
Salem’s association with the film industry is extended much beyond Dutt at the same time. He aspired to be the most dreaded gangster and one of the most poignant points in the book is the detailed account of music composer Gulshan Kumar’s murder. It is narrated in a gripping sequence, almost in the manner of a film script. like Subhash Ghai and Rakesh Roshan, Gulshan Kumar had declined to pay money to Salem. Salem surely had made up his mind to eliminate Kumar but he had one particular desire: that he should be on the phone to hear Kumar’s shrieks when he dies. After having killed builder Pradeep Jain, too, he had called Jain’s widow and laughed hysterically over the phone boasting about ‘finishing’ her husband. Salem’s self-obsession was so immense that he had urged Zaidi to discard the idea of a book and prepare for a film on him instead. In the research for the book too, members of the film industry had spoken to him, “Sanjay Gupta helped me immensely with his account of how he and Sanjay Dutt had once escaped death. Besides him, other film personalities had also helped me in the research but under condition of anonymity”.
But this biography goes deeper than that. Zaidi’s association with political journalism and his understanding of law enforcement agencies along with his knack for keen research has equipped the book with engaging content as well as clenching facts. He narrates about the operations of the D-company and other dons and their internal arrangements as well as fragmentations.
The book also highlights a pre and post-9/11 world and their impact on Salem’s life. It also underlines how the CBI, in association with the FBI, had found out about Salem’s identity in the US. “Salem owned five apartments in the US, besides a cinema and a few petrol pumps. He ran a tyre company and an automobile company in the Middle East”. In total, his account is said to have shown a balance of Rs176,675 crore. And of course, it also documents the final nail in the coffin, the capture of Salem and Monica.
Another fascinating part of the book is the involvement of his lawyer Saba Qureshi. The 30th chapter of the book, titled ‘Salem’s One-woman Army’, is on her and narrates why she took up his case and what her approaches in his defence were. Saba was also the fiancée of the late controversial lawyer Shahid Azmi, on whom Hansal Mehta had based his 2013 film Shahid, with the title role played by Rajkumar Rao, who had also won the National Film Award for the Best Actor.
Zaidi’s research is aided by his extensive readings about the mafia and his attendance in all press conferences and police briefings. He says he has stacks of newspaper clippings, court documents, chargesheets, approvers’ statements, confessional statements, and much more. Besides having reliable sources in the CBI, he also had access to court documents from the US, Portuguese Supreme Court, as well as legal papers from the Indian courts — from TADA court to the Supreme Court. And that seems to be only a quarter of what has aided his research for the book.
It’s inspiring to see someone go to such lengths to chronicle someone. I ask Zaidi if he fears for his life, which I am sure given his vocation, is under perpetual threat. He replies, “Threats are a part of life. It comes as a part of the job. I choose to focus on my work rather than losing sleep on them. By now, I have learned how to handle them.”
My Name is Abu Salem is a must-read account, which delves deep into a nexus of organised crime operations in India, in a well-research and detail-oriented way.
My Name is Abu Salem is published by Penguin Books, Rs299
