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BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS, MONEY IN THEIR POCKETS
By M H AHSAN
From picking off gangsters in the streets to easy pickings on the side, the deadly cocktail of encounters and extortions has been the undoing of many Dirty Harrys. In Mumbai, stories of their infamous networks within the underworld are legion; Dawood Ibrahim is said to have used them to eliminate his rivals, but it could never be proved that the encounters were fake.
Their source of income included taking money to settle disputes and extorting money from rich targets by threatening to stage an encounter or slap a case against them. In most cases, the threat worked. If it didn't, ''one such case would serve as a demonstration and a hundred others would bend to submission,'' says Y P Singh, ex-IPS officer and now a litigant in the drive against police corruption.
In the process, many encounter specialists amassed wealth way beyond their means. ''These people are some of the richest public servants in the country,'' says Singh.
Sample this: Daya Nayak started his life as a waiter in a small Udupi hotel in Mumbai. He joined the police force in 1995 as a sub-inspector in Juhu police station and was soon elevated to the special squad. Last year, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) probing Nayak reportedly recovered at least Rs 9 crore worth of illegal assets in separate raids.
The sub-inspector, whose monthly salary was a mere Rs 12,000, was discovered to be a partner in a Dubai hotel, which boasts a lavish dance bar, and has a flat in Switzerland in his wife Komal's name. He even set up a school at a cost of Rs 1 crore in his native village in Karnataka, which was inaugurated by Amitabh Bachchan, and allegedly has some properties in Canada.
It's not just the Mumbai cops who were making money big time. D G Vanzara, accused of masterminding fake encounters in Gujarat, is said to have disproportionate assets amounting to Rs 150 crore, including bungalows and hotels in and around Gandhinagar. It is alleged that these takings are a result of Vanzara's close nexus with politicians and hardened criminals. His modus operandi involved extorting money from criminals in return for sparing their lives. Even criminals accused of crimes like murder were allegedly let off.
Vanzara and his associates allegedly followed a general pattern: Detained criminals would be taken to a farmhouse and held there without recording their arrest. They were only released once they paid up. However, this was no guarantee for security of life. Vanzara was allegedly assisted by fellow officers Rajkumar Pandiyan, K M Vaghela, G L Singhal and other policemen in running the extortion racket.
Though their official gross salary ranges from Rs 12,000 to 20,000 per month, the actual income of an encounter specialist could be anybody's guess. ''It just depends on the cases they handle. A good settlement of a land dispute could make them earn crores. However, on average, an encounter specialist could be earning anything between Rs 2 crore and 5 crore annually,'' says Singh. Hussain Zaidi, author of Black Friday, a book on the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, pegs the figure at Rs 5 lakh to Rs 1 crore per extortion, but that's a conservative estimate given by the police.
So why isn't action taken against them? Insiders say it's because they've become indispensable to the police machinery. Because of their power, reach and network with the mafia, they often provide services and favours to superior officers. These include sharing the spoils of extortion to arranging 'investments' abroad through hawala.
There's no dearth of such cases, says Singh. The latest controversy to have rocked the Mumbai police force involves two crime branch officers, Rajendra Nikam and Anil Mahabole, who allegedly sought Rs 10 lakh as bribe from a builder, Krishnamilan Shukla, to settle a land dispute last month. When he refused to pay up, he was allegedly implicated for using the services of Dawood's sister Haseena Parker to settle the dispute. Shukla now languishes in jail, while an ACB inquiry is on against the officers. With both sides trading charges, the case has turned murky — just like the dealings of many an encounter specialist.
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INSIDE STORY
