Bombayman's Diary

Have you watched Ram Gopal Verma's 1998 movie Satya? Urmila Matondar plays the role of Singer Vidya, who is jolted when she learns that Satya, whom she loved, was a wanted gangster. Just before the cops shoot him dead, Satya attempts to meet Vidya one last time. However, a terrified Vidya refuses to open the door. A similar story unfolded in real life, linked to the 26/11 attacks. The only difference is that in the movie, Satya truly loves Vidya, but in the real-life story, the man uses the lady for his diabolical designs. In 2009, the FBI nets a Pakistani-American named David Headley at the Chicago airport. His interrogation reveals chilling information about the Mumbai attacks. The Pakistan-based terrorist organization Lashkar e Toiyba had tasked Headley with reconnaissance of potential targets in Mumbai, taking their pictures, and recording GPS coordinates. Headley performed his job diligently, traveling to Mumbai seven times between 2007-08. In Mumbai, he befriended a few peo...

My friend Hemant Bavdhankar retired as a Senior Inspector of the Mumbai Police last year. He could have retired as an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) had the Maharashtra government kept its promise. Bavdhankar was no ordinary cop. Out of the ten Pakistani terrorists that stormed Mumbai on 26-11-2008, eight were killed by the National Security Guards (NSG). Out of the remaining two, Abu Ismail was shot dead by Bavdhankar and Kasab was arrested alive by the team he was part of. He was promised “One-Step-Promotion” as a reward by the government, which he never got. It is not news that politicians are averse to fulfilling the promises they make. The election manifestos of political parties are solely intended to appeal to the voters and get hold of power. However, making false promises to voters is different from making certain announcements for the people of the armed forces, and not implementing them. The brave hearts of the Mumbai Police, like Bavdhankar, find themselves as victi...

  On Friday, the Mumbai Police slapped a criminal case on Urfi Javed, a model known for her quirky outfits and idiosyncratic style, and charged her with impersonation, cheating and defamation. Urfi has been posting pictures and videos donning the other-worldly attires and this has earned her a celebrity status. However, her antiques landed her in trouble when last week she played a prank that offended the men in uniform. With three actors who posed as cops, Urfi staged her “arrest” outside a coffee shop in Oshiwara. In the video, the cops were seen pushing her into an SUV and scolding her for wearing an “obscene” dress, which was a red-coloured sleeveless and backless top. Initially, when the video went viral, people thought that she had been really arrested. However, when the top police officers were deluged with calls from the crime reporters, they clarified that they hadn’t arrested Urfi. The cops swung into action and booked Urfi and the three actors. One male actor, who posed ...

  Last week brought dreadful news for Mumbaikars. The pollution level of the city has surpassed Delhi. Mumbai’s Air Quality Index (AQI) has reached alarming levels. The city has become a gas chamber with many Mumbaikars dying untimely deaths by breathing the poisonous air. So, who is the Hitler who transformed the city into a gas chamber? There are many Hilter in Mumbai, not one. Every year, we see news on TV about how polluted the air of Delhi becomes in winter. The TV channels devote a good amount of airtime, showing the plight of Delhi citizens who suffer from breathing issues. The farmers of neighbouring Haryana are blamed for contributing to the pollution by burning parali. Several squads have been formed to check such activity. In the past, the courts have come down heavily upon the central and the state governments over their inefficiency in controlling the pollution. Some measures like even number-odd number plying of vehicles on alternate days was adopted. Mumbaikars fe...

  Last week, the Mumbai Police arrested four people for sticking flags of Israel on the roads of Bhendi Bazaar, so that people could put their feet on it. It was their way of protesting against the Israeli response to the terrorist attack engineered by Hamas. This is another example of how a section of the Muslim community has been reacting aggressively to the events happening in other parts of the globe. Although there have been reactions across the world since the Hamas attack on Israel two weeks back, and people support one side or the other, this piece specifically delves into the reactions of Mumbai Muslims to global events. In the last 30 years, I have seen around half a dozen protests where the trigger was not in Mumbai. Author Salman Rushdie wrote his controversial book ‘The Satanic Verses’ in Britain, it was banned by the Supreme Leader of Iran and Fatwa was issued against Rushdie, but the riots happened in Mumbai, which is thousands of kilometres away from both cou...

  My school was in the Samuel Street of Masjid Bunder in Mumbai. As a student, I never bothered to find out who Samuel was and why the street was named on him. I assumed that he might be some bigshot from the colonial era. It was around twenty-five years later, after passing out from the school, that I delved into the history of Samuel Street while researching for my first novel “Bombay 3”. I came across a very interesting story which tells Mumbai’s relation with the Israeli’s. The local train travellers on the Central Railway know that the first station after the train originates from CSMT is Masjid. The word Masjid in Urdu translates into mosque, but in reality, the station is not named after any mosque, but after a synagogue, a Jewish place of worship. Hardly after a two minutes’ walk from the station, one reaches a yellow-coloured structure named “Gate of Mercy.” There is a history of why the synagogue has been so named. Two Bene-Israelis named Samuel Ezekeil and Isaac Ezek...

Some people may find it absurd to compare Mumbai with Tel Aviv in the context of terrorism. The biggest terrorist attack on Israel was from all fronts: air, sea and land. Over 5,000 rockets were launched to target buildings in Israel and the terrorists used paragliders to land at public places and massacre people. Hundreds of Israelis were abducted on gunpoint. Although Mumbai has endured some of the biggest terrorist attacks in India, none of them have been of this magnitude. However, Mumbai continues to be on the radar of terrorists and one question that comes to my mind is, how safe is Mumbai from Hamas like attack? From 11 March 1993 to 11 July 2011, Mumbai has witnessed over 10 terrorist incidents in which around 700 people have been killed and over two thousand have been injured. The attack on 26 November 2008 was the last big terror attack on Mumbai, not in terms of the number of people killed, but, due to the multiplicity of the locations and the number of hours it stretched. T...

    The residential tower where I live is a microcosm of Mumbai. My neighbours are Maharashtrian, Bengalis, Gujaratis, Tamilians, Keralities, Biharis and a few from other states of India. They practice different faiths like Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism. The managing committee of the housing society comprises people of varied linguistic, religious, and regional origins. There is no rule barring a particular community from buying or renting property in the building. As long as you are paying your maintenance bills on time, you are treated with respect. There are hundreds of housing societies like mine where people belonging to different communities live harmoniously. However, recently an incident that happened in the suburb Mulund of Mumbai led to a tremendous uproar and questioned the city’s cosmopolitan image. It especially enraged a section of the Maharashtrian community. A Maharashtrian woman and her husband went to scout f...

  Maharashtra’s biggest festival Ganeshutsav will come to an end this week. The highest crowd pulling pandal of Mumbai through the last several decades has been that of Lalbaugcha Raja in the mill district of the central Mumbai. Here is an excerpt from my book “Bombay After Ayodhya” where I wrote about a tradition associated with the festival : The tall fame of Lalbaug Ka Raja extends till the last day of the festival when the 15 feet tall idol gets pulled out of the pandal for immersion at Girgaon Chowpatty. Lakhs of people participate in this 7-kilometre-long procession, which takes about twenty hours because of the swarm of people throughout. The procession passes through some of the most congested areas of South and Central Mumbai, including a few communally sensitive patches. A large number of policemen are deployed when the procession crosses the Muslim-dominated localities like Byculla, Nagpada and Do Taki. In 1946, taking note of the communal riots that preceded the festi...

  Have you watched "Dil Chahta Hai"(2001) where three friends enjoy their drive on the Mumbai-Goa Highway? Do you remember Amitabh Bachchan starrer "Bombay To Goa"(1972) where a bus full of characters traverses through the scenic road? These movies have showcased how pleasurable the road journey from Mumbai to Goa used to be. Today, Mumbai-Goa Highway has become an antithesis of pleasure. Now, it is a hellish highway. Maharashtra's biggest festival Ganesh Utsav is around the corner. A large number of Marathi speaking people in Mumbai belong to Konkan which is connected through Mumbai - Goa Highway and many of them leave Mumbai to celebrate the festival at their native village. The trains and buses towards Konkan are overbooked. Many people form groups and hire private vehicles to reach Konkan. The Maharashtra government, to please the Konkanis, has waived off the toll charges for to and fro journey. It is an attempt to generate goodwill. But this is just a tok...

  This week, the celebration of "Hindi Diwas" will be in full swing, with schools, colleges, government institutions, banks and language advocacy organizations all getting into the spirit. They'll be hosting seminars and discussions to highlight the growing significance of Hindi on the global stage. However, there will also be some traditionalists expressing concerns about the infiltration of English words into written and spoken Hindi. As someone whose mother tongue is Hindi and who has been a Hindi journalist for nearly three decades, I find myself at odds with this group. I believe it's these die-hard Hindi enthusiasts who compelled airlines to issue warnings to passengers about smoke detectors in airplane toilets using phrases like "Shauchalayon me dhoomra anusandhaan yantra lagei hain" (Smoke detection devices are installed in the toilets). It sounds as if some equipment for scientific research has been installed in the lavatories. Why can't they s...

  In the last two decades, the landscape of crime reporting in Mumbai has undergone a dramatic transformation. Gone are the days when crime reporters chronicled a never-ending saga of violence, featuring shootouts resulting from gang wars and police encounters. In addition to this “routine coverage,” a crime reporters had to demonstrate their investigative prowess by unearthing stories that unveiled corruption and administrative negligence. These fearless exposés, which often made those in power uncomfortable and insecure, were a common sight in the media. Back then, there was no WhatsApp, and a reporter who filed a "table story" was met with disdain. Unfortunately, this style of crime reporting has become increasingly rare, and the blame cannot be solely laid at the feet of crime reporters. The decline of crime reporting in Mumbai is a topic for another discussion. Today, I'm delving into the Telgi scam, a shining example of investigative journalism from Mumbai. This sc...

Mumbai Police is one of the most disciplined, professional and formidable internal security organisations in the world. There was a time when its pace of detecting crimes was compared with the Metropolitan Police of London. However, there have been a few dark pages in its glorious history. One such chapter is of the police rebellion that happened forty-one years ago. What happened on 19 August 1982 was narrated to me by Baban Jadhav. He is one of those numbered policemen who participated in the rebellion and are still alive. Jadhav became my friend in 2003 when I was covering a proceeding at the Kurla court where few members of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) were being produced after the organisation was banned. Jadhav was the in-charge of the security of the court premises. Recently, I met him after many years at his residence in Thane. “They put me in jail on the occasion of the Ganpati festival. Even if I was guilty, why my family members were thrown out of our govern...

  This week's Bombayphile couldn't be published on Sunday, as I had gone to my native village in Barabanki of Uttar Pradesh to attend my grandfather's funeral. While returning back, I met Mr, Rajesh Pandey at Lucknow. Mr.Pandey is a retired IPS officer and a founding member of the famed Special Task Force (STF) of the UP Police. Since the time Yogi Adityanath became the CM of UP, the STF has been often in the news for killing history-sheeters in the alleged encounters. Mr. Pande, after his retirement, is successfully running a YouTube channel where he tells stories of crime. Recently, he became an author as well by publishing his first book "Operation Bajooka". The book is based on his hunt for Sriprakash Shukla, who had become UP's most dreaded gangster in the 90s and even conspired to murder then CM Kalyan Singh. An hour-long conversation with him at his residence surprised me. Although Mr.Pandey had never served in the Maharashtra Police, he had an in-dep...

Underworld Don Dawood Ibrahim might be sitting miles away from Mumbai in Karachi, but his name often reverberates in the politics of Mumbai. And this has been happening for the last three decades. Several politicians have faced allegations of being linked with India’s most wanted fugitive. The latest on the list is Nawab Malik, who recently secured bail from the Supreme Court. Nawab Malik was a minister in CM Uddhav Thackeray’s cabinet. The Enforcement Directorate arrested him on 23 February 2022 in a money laundering case linked to Dawood Ibrahim. Malik was also a spokesman for the NCP and fiercely targeted the BJP. When the NCB arrested actor Shahrukh Khan's son Aryan, Malik strongly criticized the agency, claiming that the case was fabricated and that Aryan was arrested to extort money from his father. After Malik's arrest, the NCP alleged that it was the BJP’s move to silence him. Nawab Malik’s political boss Sharad Pawar too had faced allegations of being hand in glove wit...

कर्नाटक नतीजे आने के बाद कई लोग सोशल मीडिया पर मेरे पोस्ट को पढकर ये अनुमान लगा रहे हैं कि शायद मैं कांग्रेसी हूं। अनुमान गलत है। तो क्या मैं भाजपाई हूं ? क्या मैं भक्त हूं ? नहीं जी। फिर क्या मैं वामपंथी हूं ? बिलकुल नहीं। ...तो फिर मैं कैसा शख्स हूं जिसकी कोई विचारधारा ही नहीं है ? मेरी सोच ऐसे लोगों के मन में उठ रहे तमाम सवालों से अलग है। मेरा परिचय भारत के एक नागरिक का है। मेरी नजर में जैसे ही आप किसी राजनीतिक पार्टी के फुलटाईम समर्थक / कार्यकर्ता बनते हैं या फिर किसी राजनेता के भक्त बन जाते हैं तो आप अपने आपको को उन अधिकारों से वंचित कर लेते हैं जो एक लोकतांत्रिक देश के नागरिक होने के नाते आपको मिले हैं। अगर आप किसी राजनेता के भक्त हैं तो आपको उसकी हर बात पर वाह वाह करनी पडेगी। आपको उसके हर उस फैसले का भी सार्वजनिक तौर पर समर्थन करना पडेगा जिसे निजी तौर पर आप गलत मानते होंगे। कई बार उसके फैसले ऐसे होते सकते हैं जो सीधे आपको और आपके घर वालों को प्रभावित करते हों, परेशान करते हों।...लेकिन आप तो भक्त ठहरे। आपको तो उसका भी समर्थन करना ही पडेगा। कई बार आप जिसके भक्त हैं उसके फैसले ...