Sibling Worries

OFFICIALLY, they are separated. High-flying Union Minister C.M. Ibrahim and his history-sheeter brothers C.M. Khader and C.M. Sadiq have publicly disowned each other more than once in the recent past. But unable to disown their past, or mend their present, Khader and Sadiq have again emerged out of the wilderness of police records in Karnataka only to be put behind bars. And when last week Khader, who was on bail, was arrested and jailed for attempting to molest a 22-year-old 'friend' and murder her stepfather in the industrial town of Bhadravathi in central Karnataka, history was repeating itself for the family of Prime Minister Deve Gowda's Man Friday.

But this time around, the stakes are high. With Ibrahim arguably the second most powerful man in the United Front Government, Sadiq has given political colour to the affair by accusing Karnataka Chief Minister J.H. Patel and Minister of State for Home Roshan Baig of conspiring to defame and destroy Ibrahim's thriving political career. Nearly two decades ago, C.M. Rehman, another of Ibrahim's siblings, was accused of raping a friend and paid for it with his life after he was stabbed 21 times by rowdies in a grisly saga of gang rivalry in Bhadravathi. Ibrahim, then in the Congress, was under a cloud for allegedly sheltering his brother. Khader, 37, was arrested from the house of his friend Nazir Ahmed, a jewellery shop owner, after he allegedly tried to molest the latter's step- daughter Shamshad Begum, a little after midnight on January 6. (Khader is said to be having an affair with Sham-shad.) Khader and his driver were also accused of attempting to murder Ahmed when he tried to stop Khader. An hour earlier, a drunk Khader had been asked to return home by sub-inspector P.O. Shivkumar, whose Old Town police station is a stone's throw away from Ahmed's house, when he found him in his car playing loud music.

Earlier in December, Sadiq, 30, had surrendered in a Bangalore city court in connection with a 1985 kidnapping and robbery case and was released on bail. Khader, who was also accused in that case, had obtained anticipatory bail from a district court. "It is a conspiracy by Chief Minister Patel and Roshan Baig to curb the political ascent of my brother Ibrahim," alleges Sadiq. "First the BJP bought over Ahmed and got him to make these wild charges. And now Patel and Baig are using it to further their political ends." Sadiq, who runs a construction business in Bhadravathi, told Outlook that the whole episode smacks of witch-hunting. "Of course, Khader has his vices and has made mistakes in the past but he isn't dumb enough to attempt to rape a girl when he is the younger brother of a powerful Union minister. That too in the neighbourhood of a police station." Yet, going by the brothers' track record, the entire political class and the state police force in Karnataka would like to believe otherwise. A father of four who last year returned to Bhadravathi after shutting down his loss-making soft drink distribution business in Kerala, Khader has 15 police cases registered against him in the same Old Town police station and another three in the rural police station in Bhadravathi apart from the cases in Bangalore. A rowdy-sheeter since 1977, Khader, as also Sadiq, have regularly been in and out of police records for various crimes, including rioting, assault, wrongful confinement and attempts to molest.

Last June, weeks after Ibrahim became a Union minister, Khader was arrested and released on bail by the Kerala police for trying to sell a stolen car. Ibrahim had then publicly disowned Khader, which Sadiq confirms: "Politics has become more important for Ibrahim than his brothers. He should come to our support now, considering we have been made scapegoats for his political ascent." Veteran Ibrahim watchers in Bangalore, both in government and in the police department, dub it an eyewash. They claim "the business of separation and disown-ment" is only for public consumption. The charge is that the brothers are together.

Ibrahim has so far manitained a discreet silence about his brother's escapades. But he is bound to be watched closely both by the media and his political adversaries. Reports suggest that his detractors are gathering "evidence" to debunk the disownment theory by proving that both Khader and Sadiq were present when he was being sworn in as union minister. If they manage that, it is bound to add to the pressures of thealready beleagured Gowda government.