Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar
Sabir Ibrahim Kaskar (died 12 February 1981) was a notorious Indian criminal based in Mumbai. He was the elder brother of Dawood Ibrahim, the current gang leader of the D-Company. The rise of Sabir and Dawood in Mumbai's underworld and the sympathetic attitude of the Mumbai police towards them evoked the jealousy and resentment of from the Pathan gang that dominated South Mumbai area. Finally, the inter-gang rivalry grew to such an extent that the Pathan gang leader Samad Khan and his trusted cronies Amirzada and Alamzeb plotted to kill Sabir and Dawood. On 12 February 1981, they shot dead Sabir at a petrol pump in Prabhadevi in central Mumbai.
Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar | |
|---|---|
| Died | 12 February 1981 |
| Cause of death | Killed by Pathan gang members- Samad Khan, Amirzada and Alamzeb |
| Relatives | Dawood Ibrahim (Brother) |
The murder of Sabir was an important chapter in Mumbai's underworld as it unleashed a gruesome gang war between Dawood Ibrahim gang- D Company and the Pathan gang leading to a spate of shootouts. Amirzada Alamzeb and Samad were eliminated one by one by gangsters financed by Dawood and eventually the Pathan gang's dominance was replaced by the Dawood Ibrahim gang.
Early life and entry into crime
Sabir Ibrahim Kaskar, was the eldest son of Ibrahim Kaskar, a police constable in the CID department at Azad Maidan police station in Mumbai. He lived in Temkar mohalla in Dongri in South Mumbai. He was a Konkani Muslim and hailed from Mumka village in Ratnagiri district, Konkan region in the Indian state of Maharashtra in 1955.[1] He belongs to the Konkani Muslim community.[2]
The family had eight children and was perennially impoverished. Sabir and his younger brother, Dawood were school dropouts and often spent their days wandering on the streets of Dongri and Bhendi Bazar. In those days, people in those areas lived in fear and awe of Karim Lala, the leader of the Pathan gang and Haji Mastan, the smuggler who enjoyed a cult following among the impoverished Muslim youths in south Mumbai including Sabir and Dawood. Soon Sabir and Dawood joined in the petty street crime of selling smuggled electronics goods and watches. They often cheated gullible travelers and got involved in street brawls. Sabir, Dawood, and their friends would hang out near Crawford Market in search of gullible travelers and offer them smuggled Rolex watches for a measly price compared to the actual cost. After the buyer paid them in cash, they would pretend to wrap the watch in a small paper or cloth and tell the buyer not to open it to avoid police suspicion. It would be a stone instead of the watch. They called this activity "Adla-Badli" (switch and bait). If the buyer found out that he had been cheated and accosted them, they would intimidate him with the help of burly Pathan hoodlums from the neighborhood. They also did odd jobs for Haji Mastan and Karim Lala gangs like collecting protection money ("hafta vasuli") from shopkeepers, offloading smuggled goods and transporting them from one place to another.
Rivalry with the Pathan gang and death
In December 1974, Dawood Ibrahim and his ragtag gang of friends robbed Rs. 4.75 Lakhs in cash from what they believed were 'angadiyas' (local courier men) carrying cash from rich Gujarati businessmen. Later they realized that the cash actually belonged to the Metropolitan Bank in Bombay. Dawood and Sabir became rich gangsters overnight but incurred the wrath of the Pathan gang leader- Samad Khan, the eccentric nephew of Karim Lala for daring to rob in his territory. When Emergency was declared in India between 1975 to 1977, most gangsters including Haji Mastan and Karim Lala were either jailed or went into hiding. Dawood and Sabir took advantage of the power vacuum and started managing the smuggling business of Haji Mastan on his behalf. By 1980, Dawood and Sabir had become as rich and influential as the Pathan gang. Moreover they enjoyed the symathy of certain factions within the Mumbai police who used them as a bulwark to curb the growing menace of the Pathan gang.
Dawood and Sabir would tip-off the police on the illegal transactions of the Pathan gang. In return, the police would turn a blind eye towards their illegal activities. Tensions between the Pathan gang and Dawood-Sabir reached to such an extent that in 1981, Samad Khan decided to eliminate Sabir and Dawood to regain control of the underworld in South Mumbai.
On 12 February 1981, Samad, Alamzeb and Amirzada chased Sabir's fiat car and finally gunned him down at a petrol pump opposite the Siddhi Vinayak temple in Prabhadevi. Contrary to popular rumours, gangster Manya Surve was not involved in Sabir's murder. Immediately after killing Sabir, the Pathan gangsters turned back into Temkar mohalla to kill Dawood. But he was saved by his alert bodyguard, Khalid Pehelwan. Dawood escaped and planned to take revenge for his brother's murder.
He offered a big supari (contract for killing) to rival gang leaders- Bada Rajan and Rama Naik to kill Samad, Amirzada and Alamzeb. The first one to be eliminated was Amirzada who was shot dead in broad daylight in the Mumbai sessions court in September 1983 by David Pardeshi, a member from the Bada Rajan gang. Alamzeb was gunned down in Vadodara by the Gujarat police in an encounter, rumored to have been engineered by Dawood Ibrahim. After Alamzeb's death, Dawood evaded police arrest and escaped to Dubai. Finally, in October 1984, Samad Khan was shot dead outside his apartment in south Mumbai by members of the Rama Naik gang.
In popular culture
Manoj Bajpai's character Zubair Imtiaz Haksar in the film, Shootout at Wadala was based on Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar. Shootout at Wadala initially premiered the name as Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar on their promos, which later on changed to Zubair Imtiaz Haksar.
References
- Praveen Swami (27 March 1999). "Mumbai's mafia wars". Interpol. Archived from the original on 3 April 2007. Retrieved 10 April 2007.
- "1993 blasts linked to power struggle". 18 September 2006. Retrieved 30 September 2018.