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Bombay gangstas' get the rap in Bangalore

M D Riti in Bangalore

Almost 200 gangsters from the Bombay underworld have used Bangalore as their route to flee the country over the recent past.

So say the Bombay and Bangalore police.

However, the police in both states have now wised up to this phenomenon and begun cracking down on these potential escapees.

All this came to light with the gunning down of three gangsters belonging to the Chhota Rajan gang over a kilometre from the Bangalore airport two nights ago.

Police sources now say the Bombay police were tipped off about the plan of the three to use the Bangalore airport to flee the country by the Chhota Shakeel gang, who are known to be rivals of the Rajan gang.

The police had been tipped off that these three men would be boarding a midnight flight to Singapore from the Bangalore airport.

They were fleeing from Bangalore to Bangkok, which is Rajan's hideout. Fearing that they would be recognised, the men checked in their luggage, took their boarding passes and then walked out of the airport to a deserted bus stop about a kilometre away.

Meanwhile, two police officers from Bombay who were on their trail, and had been tipped off in Bombay that these men were bound for Bangkok, were in Bangalore.

Assisting them, at their own behest, was inspector Saudagar of the Bangalore police. All three men went to the airport in search of the gangsters.

When they did not find them there, they went looking around the airport for them.

And they found them all huddled together in a dark bus stop. The desperadoes, as soon as they saw the police officers approaching, whipped out guns and fired. The police returned their fire.

The men later confirmed as henchmen of Bombay underworld don Chhota Rajan all fell prey to the bullets and died. None of the three police officers were injured.

This is the version of the Bombay and the Bangalore police about the shootout that occurred in Bangalore close to midnight on Wednesday, resulting in the death of three gangsters.

However, questions are now being raised in media circles about whether the encounter was genuine or fake.

Shakeel had organised an unsuccessful attempt on Rajan's life in Bangkok last year.

Jaggu Shetty, one of the three men now killed, was the one who reportedly eliminated Vinod Shetty, the man who was supposed to have tipped of Shakeel about Rajan's whereabouts at that time, for which the Bombay police was looking out for Shetty.

Some airport sources now say they saw some commotion in the airport campus, that looked like police chasing gangsters right there.

The gangsters were then loaded into a police jeep and taken off, they say.

These versions now raise some doubts about whether the police encounter was genuine or not.

The two police officers from Bombay involved in the encounter are Vijay Salaskar and Satish Mayekar.

Some police sources in Bangalore say that one of these men is facing charges in the Bombay High Court for the death of two gangsters, Vijay Tandel and Sada Pawle.

Of the three gangsters shot dead, at least two of them are from Karnataka.

The most notorious amongst them was undoubtedly Jagadeesh Fakira Shetty alias Jaggu, 38, originally from Bantwal in South Karnataka.

Much of the underworld of Bombay has originated from this part of the Karnataka coast. Shetty was believed to have been lying low for a while now, fearing the wrath of Chhota Shakeel and his men, after he was believed to have had a hand in the killing of Vinod Shetty, also known as Chembur Vinod.

Vinod Shetty, who came from the same region of Karnataka as Jagadeesh, was supposed to have been close to Chhota Shakeel. Police sources now believe that Jagadeesh brought his two friends, Uday aliasYashwant Chikna and Sushil Gaonkar, with him from Bombay to Karnataka.

Jagadeesh was known to have been an extortionist preying on jewellers in Bombay. That is why Salaskar, who is with the anti-extortion cell in Bandra, was apparently on his trail.

However, some major discrepancies in the police version have raised a doubt about whether the men were really shot in a police encounter. One of the three was dressed in a white dhoti, which seems unlikely attire for an international passenger, especially one not wanting to draw attention to himself.

The three corpses all had valid boarding cards in their pockets. But how did men about to board an aeroplane carry guns on them?

Besides, how did the police correctly manage to aim at the men's heads in the dark? And how did the gangsters reach the airport with their luggage?

"We have sent a strong message to the Bombay underworld that they cannot use Bangalore as their new centre of activity," says Joint police commissioner Ajay Kumar Singh.

Besides, they were supposedly shot just 15 minutes before the flight was to take off. Why were they right outside the huge campus of the airport so close to departure time? Nobody seems to be searching too hard for the answers to these questions right now, as all three men have been on the most wanted list of the Bangalore police.

Pictures by KM Veeresh

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