The eye of a killer

Often the person a hitman kills isn’t known to him, and most of the time he doesn’t even know the reason for the killing. Though, in the underworld hierarchy, he’s the most important member of a gang, he’s treated as mere pawn in the power game and is considered as dispensable as anundergarment. The hitman’s job, remuneration and other matters are looked after by a controller. But nothing’s fixed. Even the remuneration for each hit varies from Rs 2,000 to Rs 35,000. However, the latter sum is clearly on the higher side and history has recorded only two instances where such a high remuneration was paid to a killer.

The current market rate for each killing is approximately Rs 5,000, regardless of the quarry’s status. The most daring shootout of recent times has been the killing of Roopam owner and multi-millionaire, Bharat Shah, who was shot dead right in front of the police headquarters on October 8 this year. Even the most hardcore killers would have thought twice about gunning down a victim in such a location. But four young men in the age-group of 20 to 25 executed what is now regarded as the boldest hit in Mumbai’s mafia history. Last week, the crime branch arrested two of the people involved in the killing. Subsequent interrogations revealed that the person who was paid thehighest amount was one 22-year-old Shaikh Ismail, and his remuneration was Rs 7,000. According to crime branch sleuths, Shaikh’s back-up shooter, Kishan Rathod, was paid Rs 5,000, and each fielder was paid Rs 2,000.Before the execution of any job, three to four persons conduct a recce. They study the routine of their quarry, his habits and the spots where he’s most vulnerable. In underworld parlance, this recce is called fielding’. A hit is carried out by a minimum of two and a maximum of five men, although four is considered the ideal size for a hit team.

The one who spearheads the hit squad and fires the maximum rounds is called the main shooter. The person who watches the main shooter’s back and provides him with back-up support in case of cross-firing, the failure of the weapon or any other crisis, is called the second shooter’. The rest — who’re responsible for maintaining a watch on the surroundings, including the cops, the getaway vehicle and escape routes and who inform the boss after thecompletion of the job — are known as fielders.’

Whenever a person is initiated into the underworld starts at the bottom rung of the ladder. His induction begins with fielding and other such errands. A contract killer invariably begins his career as a lowly fielder and thereafter progresses, over time, to become the main shooter. Of course, there are some exceptions to this rule. A former police constable from the local arms division, Rajesh Igwe, who later joined the Abu Salem gang and killed builder Om Prakash Kukreja in 1995, didn’t have to go through the regular grind. The killer duo of Rajesh Igwe and Salim Haddi became the most dreaded of its time.

Similarly, Mumbai’s most wanted contract killer, Feroz Konkani, was directly promoted to the rank of shooter. Konkani executed his first hit job at the age of 17 years and until the time of his arrest at the age of 20, he was involved in over 18 murders, including that of Bhartiya Janata Party leader Ramdas Nayak.

Among the foot-soldiers, Konkani wasprobably the only contract killer who was pampered and well-provided for by his bosses. Besides a Maruti, a flat in Juhu and a bevy of girls, Konkani was given a monthly salary of Rs 5,000, not to mention a separate payment for each hit. But for the killing of Nayak, Konkani was paid Rs 35,000.

The only other instance in which a contract killer was paid better than Konkani was in 1982. Soon after the murder of Dawood Ibrahim’s brother, Sabir, in 1982, Dawood had sworn revenge. He was baying for the blood of the then chief of the Pathan syndicate, Alamgir, who had masterminded the Sabir murder. But Alamgir was arrested by police. Dawood, who wanted to exact revenge at any cost, had then floated a supari of Rs 50,000 for Alamgir’s murder. In those days, Rs 50,000 was considered a mind-boggling sum for a killing.

An unemployed and frustrated youth, David Pardesi, took up the offer and shot Alamgir right in the Sessions Court, when Alamgir was being led to the witness box. Pardesi managed to escape from thecourt with a bullet in his ankle. He met a miserable end though, and a couple of years ago he was spotted begging near Bombay Central Terminus.

Like Pardesi, most sharpshooters are tired of their poverty, and they take to crime because they cannot earn a living by other means. Bollywood pot-boilers and fiction thrillers have helped in imparting a touch of glamour to the shooters. The hitman is regarded as cold, ruthless — psychopathic in fact. But the reality is different. The dossiers of Mumbai police are full of statements of contract killers, who narrated what they went through at the time of killings.

Last Thursday, the crime branch arrested Arif Jabar Shaikh, alias Arif Kalia, one of the ten most wanted shooters. In his statement to a senior crime branch officer, Arif admitted that at the time of his first killing — that of Haji Mukhtar — when he opened fire, “the sound of gunfire and the sight of gushing blood so jolted me that I almost shat in my pants.”Similarly, Feroz Konkani had said in hisstatement that at the time of each hit, his legs use to quiver and his entire body use to shake like a dry leaf, but he somehow managed to keep his hands steady. Venkatesh Bugga Reddy, alias Baba Reddy, of the Chhota Rajan gang used to throw up after every killing.

Observes an assistant commissioner in Mumbai,“The recession and poverty may force youths to kill somebody for less and less money in future.”