Ali Budesh
Encyclopedia
Ali Baba Budesh is a notorious Indian extortionist and underworld don of the Indian Mafia
, based in Bahrain
. Fearing backlash from the Mumbai police
, Budesh fled to Bahrain in the late eighties, where he opened up his new base of operations in the capital city of Manama
.
mother and Arab father, he made his entrance into the Mumbai underworld as a petty pickpocket and a street ruffian. The police in Vikhroli
, a north-eastern suburb of the city, had registered a case of assault against him. However, prior to his involvement in petty crime, Budesh is known to have studied at a boarding school
near Pune
.
's gang members who were on the run from the police, and sought shelter in the labyrinthine slums of the Vikhroli Parksite area. Budesh was rewarded for his initial assistance of these men, when he was sent to Dubai
and met Dawood Ibrahim, the infamous head of the D-Company
and India's most wanted fugitive.
's Tihar Central Prison. Another former Ibrahim aide, Dilawar Khan, became Budesh's right hand man. This alliance caused some major upsets to Ibrahim's declining empire.
at Muharraq
in 1996 is believed to have been due to a tip-off from Budesh. Dawood spent over Rs 5 lakh for his brother's release. Similarly, the month-long incarceration of Abu Salem
, another key underworld figure at the UAE's Al-Rafa detention centre was attributed to Budesh. Budesh also began informing on other Indian NRI gangsters such as Chhota Shakeel
, Noora Ibrahim, etc., forcing them to flee the UAE for Pakistan
, where they are believed to have made their base of operations in Karachi
.
film industry. His demands from builders include an annual fee or a few flats in their projects. From diamond merchants, he seeks deposits in numbered accounts in Swiss banks. However, the biggest contributors to his extortion racket have always been the Bollywood film figures.
Those who usually refuse to pay the extortion money or hafta as it is called in the Mumbai underworld jargon, are dealt with in a severe manner. For instance, when Natwarlal Desai, a local Mumbai based builder refused to pay the hafta being demanded by Budesh's gang, he was later shot dead on August 18, 1997 at Nariman Point by the Budesh gang members. Those businessmen who were reluctant to pay the hafta to Budesh's enforcers, paid up with alacrity after the Desai killing. After this incident, no other killing by the Budesh gang was reported for a long time.
On April, 1998, Keith Rodrigues, the 23-year-old chief steward at the Copper Chimney restaurant at Saki Naka was shot dead by Ali Budesh's gunmen. The murder was done as a warning to the restaurant's owner, Satish Bansal, who had been dodging Budesh's demand for Rs 5 lakh for months.
, Mukesh Bhatt
and Boney Kapoor
, and demanded up to Douw khokha (Rs. 2 crore) from each of them. The Tips Cassette Company owner, Ramesh Taurani, was also being extorted for the same amount.
On January 21, 2000, Rakesh Roshan was shot at by two Budesh gang members near his office on Tilak Road at Santacruz West. The assailants fired two bullets at him, one of which hit him on the left arm while the other grazed his chest. As the director fell to the ground, the assailants fled the scene. The assailants were later identified as Sunil Vithal Gaikwad and Sachin Kamble. The attack on Roshan was not undertaken with the intent to kill, but to signal that the Shiv Sena
could no longer protect its clients. Roshan had stonewalled demands from Budesh for a percentage of the profits from the overseas sale of the Hindi blockbuster, Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai
.
with the Mumbai police at Kandivli.
don Subhash Singh Thakur, had hoped to extort money out of this deal from Natwar Lal Desai, a well known builder.
However, Desai who had links with the D-Company, refused to pay them any cash and asked Dawood to intervene. This resulted in a verbal spat between the two dons. Dawood threatened Budesh on phone asking the latter to stay away from Desai, to which the latter did not respond well.
According to the excerpts from a tape sent by Budesh to India Today
on March 2010, he stated:
In retaliation, Budesh and Thakur allegedly had Desai killed on August 18, 1997.
In March 2010 Ali Badesh declared an open war against his former mentor, Dawood Ibrahim and his D-company, vowing to kill the former. Budesh has teamed up with underworld don Babloo Srivastava and launched Operation D against Dawood and his gang.
The duo are now being seen as the most deadly threat that the D-company has ever faced, bigger than even Dawood's arch-rival, Chhota Rajan
.
They are in fact accused by the Nepal
ese and India
n authorities of being behind the murders of Dawood's three main agents in Nepal, i.e., Majid Manihar, Parvez Tanda and Jamim Shah
, Nepalese media entrepreneur who was reputed to be the architect of Dawood's counterfeit currency racket in India.
Dawood is believed to have entrusted his chief lieutenant, Chhota Shakeel
to deal with Budesh.
Indian mafia
The term Indian mafia refers to certain criminal organizations found in some of India's major cities. The "Indian Mafia" also refer to powerful families that have criminal aspects to it.- Mumbai underworld :...
, based in Bahrain
Bahrain
' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...
. Fearing backlash from the Mumbai police
Mumbai Police
The Mumbai Police is the police force of the city of Mumbai, India. It has the primary responsibilities of law enforcement and investigation within the limits of Mumbai. The department's motto is ""...
, Budesh fled to Bahrain in the late eighties, where he opened up his new base of operations in the capital city of Manama
Manama
Manama is the capital and largest city of Bahrain, with an approximate population of 155,000 people.Long an important trading center in the Persian Gulf, Manama is home to a very diverse population...
.
Early life
Most of the details of Budesh's early life and background are unclear. Born to an Indian MuslimMuslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
mother and Arab father, he made his entrance into the Mumbai underworld as a petty pickpocket and a street ruffian. The police in Vikhroli
Vikhroli
Vikhroli is a suburb of Mumbai. The suburb has a railway station by the same name on the Central Railway line. The station was built just before India's independence in 1947 to cater to the needs of the sprawling Godrej Complex in the vicinity...
, a north-eastern suburb of the city, had registered a case of assault against him. However, prior to his involvement in petty crime, Budesh is known to have studied at a boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
near Pune
Pune
Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...
.
Contact with Dawood Ibrahim
While living in the slums near the Pankheshah Baba shrine at Vikhroli, Budesh came into contact with some of Dawood IbrahimDawood Ibrahim
Dawood Ibrahim , also known as Dawood Ebrahim, and Sheikh Dawood Hassan, is the head of the organized crime syndicate [[D-Company]] in Mumbai. He is currently on the wanted list of Interpol for organised crime and counterfeiting. He was No. 4 on the Forbes' World's Top 10 most dreaded criminals...
's gang members who were on the run from the police, and sought shelter in the labyrinthine slums of the Vikhroli Parksite area. Budesh was rewarded for his initial assistance of these men, when he was sent to Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
and met Dawood Ibrahim, the infamous head of the D-Company
D-Company
D-Company is a term coined by the media for the criminal organization and terrorist group headed by wanted terrorist leader and crime boss Dawood Ibrahim....
and India's most wanted fugitive.
Boss of his own gang
Budesh later split from the D-Company, together with other key aides of Dawood Ibrahim such as the Pakistani smuggler Shoaib Khan, Irfan Goga, and Ijaz Pathan, and formed his own separate gang with its headquarters in Bahrain. He allied himself with some of Dawood Ibrahim's enemies and went on to lead them against him. These a feared gangster from Virar-Virar, Subhash Singh Thakur, who is currently lodged in New DelhiNew Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
's Tihar Central Prison. Another former Ibrahim aide, Dilawar Khan, became Budesh's right hand man. This alliance caused some major upsets to Ibrahim's declining empire.
Informant
He also began informing on members of the D-Company to law enforcement. The detention of Dawood Ibrahim's brother, Anees Ibrahim at the Bahrain International AirportBahrain International Airport
Bahrain International Airport is an international airport located in Muharraq, an island on the northern tip of Bahrain, about northeast of the capital Manama...
at Muharraq
Muharraq
Muharraq , is Bahrain's third largest city, and served as its capital until 1923. The city is located on Muharraq Island and has long been a centre of religiosity...
in 1996 is believed to have been due to a tip-off from Budesh. Dawood spent over Rs 5 lakh for his brother's release. Similarly, the month-long incarceration of Abu Salem
Abu Salem
Abu Salem is an underworld don originally from Azamgarh district in Uttar Pradesh, India. He is convicted for the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case and killing of India's music baron Gulshan Kumar in 1997. He has unsuccessfully attempted to kill Bollywood film directors Rajiv Rai and Rakesh Roshan....
, another key underworld figure at the UAE's Al-Rafa detention centre was attributed to Budesh. Budesh also began informing on other Indian NRI gangsters such as Chhota Shakeel
Chhota Shakeel
Chhota Shakeel , is an Indian, accused of association with Dawood Ibrahim.According to old hats, one of his stories which put him in the spotlight was his encounter with the customs officer...
, Noora Ibrahim, etc., forcing them to flee the UAE for Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, where they are believed to have made their base of operations in Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
.
Involvement in the extortion rackets
In spite of the falling out with his former mentor, Budesh's policy in his extortion rackets closely follow Dawood Ibrahim's modus operandi. His targets include builders, diamond merchants and figures within the BollywoodBollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
film industry. His demands from builders include an annual fee or a few flats in their projects. From diamond merchants, he seeks deposits in numbered accounts in Swiss banks. However, the biggest contributors to his extortion racket have always been the Bollywood film figures.
Those who usually refuse to pay the extortion money or hafta as it is called in the Mumbai underworld jargon, are dealt with in a severe manner. For instance, when Natwarlal Desai, a local Mumbai based builder refused to pay the hafta being demanded by Budesh's gang, he was later shot dead on August 18, 1997 at Nariman Point by the Budesh gang members. Those businessmen who were reluctant to pay the hafta to Budesh's enforcers, paid up with alacrity after the Desai killing. After this incident, no other killing by the Budesh gang was reported for a long time.
On April, 1998, Keith Rodrigues, the 23-year-old chief steward at the Copper Chimney restaurant at Saki Naka was shot dead by Ali Budesh's gunmen. The murder was done as a warning to the restaurant's owner, Satish Bansal, who had been dodging Budesh's demand for Rs 5 lakh for months.
Extorting Bollywood
Some leading Bollywood film producers also became victims of Budesh's extortion tactics. He made threatening calls to Rakesh RoshanRakesh Roshan
Rakesh Roshan Rakesh Roshan Rakesh Roshan (Hindi: राकेश रोशन (born Rakesh Roshan Lal Nagrath on 6 September 1949 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India) is a producer, director and former actor in Bollywood films who was born in a Punjabi Hindu Kayastha family...
, Mukesh Bhatt
Mukesh Bhatt
Mukesh Bhatt , is an Indian film producer, who has produced several Bollywood films. He is the younger brother of director, Mahesh Bhatt and also the co-owner of the production company, Vishesh Films, set up in 1986...
and Boney Kapoor
Boney Kapoor
Boney Kapoor is an Indian film producer and recently he became director of Sahara One Media and Entertainment Limited of Sahara India Pariwar....
, and demanded up to Douw khokha (Rs. 2 crore) from each of them. The Tips Cassette Company owner, Ramesh Taurani, was also being extorted for the same amount.
On January 21, 2000, Rakesh Roshan was shot at by two Budesh gang members near his office on Tilak Road at Santacruz West. The assailants fired two bullets at him, one of which hit him on the left arm while the other grazed his chest. As the director fell to the ground, the assailants fled the scene. The assailants were later identified as Sunil Vithal Gaikwad and Sachin Kamble. The attack on Roshan was not undertaken with the intent to kill, but to signal that the Shiv Sena
Shiv Sena
Shiv Sena , is a political party in India founded on 19 June 1966 by Balasaheb Thackeray. It is currently headed by Thackeray's son, Uddhav Thackeray...
could no longer protect its clients. Roshan had stonewalled demands from Budesh for a percentage of the profits from the overseas sale of the Hindi blockbuster, Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai
Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai
Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai is a 2000 Bollywood film directed by Rakesh Roshan. The film marks the debut of his son Hrithik Roshan and also the debut of Ameesha Patel. Hrithik played a double role in the film, and became an overnight superstar in India.Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai won many awards, including...
.
Clashes with the law
Budesh claimed responsibility for the hand-grenade attack near a hotel in Dahisar, a western suburb of Bombay on June, 1998. In the incident, some gangsters, when challenged, hurled the grenade at the police. In the blast and the subsequent police firing, two policemen and three gangsters were killed and several others were injured. However, Budesh's claim was dismissed by the Mumbai police. The following year, Tirupati Kotian and Austin Carvalho, two members of the Ali Budesh gang were shot dead in an encounterEncounter killings
An encounter is a euphemism used in South Asia to describe extrajudicial killings in which police or armed forces shoot down suspected gangsters and terrorists in gun battles....
with the Mumbai police at Kandivli.
Open War against Dawood Ibrahim
Budesh had a great falling out with Dawood over a property deal in Mumbai in 1997. Budesh, along with Uttar PradeshUttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
don Subhash Singh Thakur, had hoped to extort money out of this deal from Natwar Lal Desai, a well known builder.
However, Desai who had links with the D-Company, refused to pay them any cash and asked Dawood to intervene. This resulted in a verbal spat between the two dons. Dawood threatened Budesh on phone asking the latter to stay away from Desai, to which the latter did not respond well.
According to the excerpts from a tape sent by Budesh to India Today
India Today
India Today is an Indian weekly news magazine published by Living Media India Limited, in publication since 1975 based in Mumbai. India Today is also the name of its sister-publication in Hindi...
on March 2010, he stated:
In retaliation, Budesh and Thakur allegedly had Desai killed on August 18, 1997.
In March 2010 Ali Badesh declared an open war against his former mentor, Dawood Ibrahim and his D-company, vowing to kill the former. Budesh has teamed up with underworld don Babloo Srivastava and launched Operation D against Dawood and his gang.
The duo are now being seen as the most deadly threat that the D-company has ever faced, bigger than even Dawood's arch-rival, Chhota Rajan
Chhota Rajan
Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje alias Chhota Rajan is the boss of a major crime syndicate based in India. He is a former key aide and lieutenant of Dawood Ibrahim. Starting as a petty thief and bootlegger working for Rajan Nair, also known as Bada Rajan . Chhota Rajan took over the reins of Bada Rajan's...
.
They are in fact accused by the Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
ese and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n authorities of being behind the murders of Dawood's three main agents in Nepal, i.e., Majid Manihar, Parvez Tanda and Jamim Shah
Jamim Shah
Jamim Shah was a Nepalese media entrepreneur and the chairman of Channel Nepal Pvt. Ltd. He was the pioneer of commercial cable television network in Nepal with over 1,000 kilometres of cable network...
, Nepalese media entrepreneur who was reputed to be the architect of Dawood's counterfeit currency racket in India.
Dawood is believed to have entrusted his chief lieutenant, Chhota Shakeel
Chhota Shakeel
Chhota Shakeel , is an Indian, accused of association with Dawood Ibrahim.According to old hats, one of his stories which put him in the spotlight was his encounter with the customs officer...
to deal with Budesh.