National

Reign Of The Prima Donna

Mumbai-style organised crime spills over into sleepy Nagpur, and three women emerge as its nucleus

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Reign Of The Prima Donna
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When cops came knocking at the doors of the 'liquor queen' of Nagpur, Latabai Deshmukh stripped down to her bare minimum and threatened them with a case of molestation. She would shed her clothes again and again over the years to avoid being hauled up for bootlegging, among other offences. Until, finally, the police, fed up and wise to her ways, risked a rape charge and threw her behind bars on May 12, 2000, where she will cool her heels for at least a year.

Latabai has been detained under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities (Slumlords, Bootleggers and Dangerous Persons) Act, a law passed as recently as 1996 to deal specifically with underworld dons like Arun Gawli. According to this Act, which helped police detain Gawli, law enforcers don't have to produce the offenders in a court. A government committee approves (or otherwise) the police action within 12 days and within 49 days an advisory board headed by a high court judge endorses the action. If they don't, the detenu is released.

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Such mercy, however, is unlikely to come the way of Latabai or her fellow mpda detenu Tarabai Gaidhane, another bootlegger, who, on discovering that a rival had set up business across the road, made him pay with his life.

But why does the administration need the mpda? Particularly when there are other equally effective laws under the Indian Penal Code to deal with murder and bootlegging, and even blackmail and extortion. The case of Kantabai Bhalerao perhaps emphasises why the police desperately need the mpda. Kantabai, who had been charged with blackmail and extortion, responded to the police by swallowing the summons she was presented with and by biting and beating up the woman sub-inspector sent with the order.

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Hence, the Nagpur police are certainly not over-reacting by invoking the mpda. Says dcp (crime) Kulwant Kumar: "We had no other choice. The prohibition laws have no teeth and though the women had several charges against them, they continued to cock a snook at the law with impunity." Kumar is reluctant to use the word 'mafia' for these women because that brings to his mind shades of Sicily. But it's precisely the spectre of organised crime on Nagpur's horizon that prompted the police to make a clean sweep of their triple troubles.

B.. Mishra, the city's new police commissioner, is "apprehensive" that organised crime might come to Nagpur "very soon". Consequently, he has taken serious note of the kidnapping of the two-and-a-half-year-old grandchild of a city jeweller this week. Avers Mishra: "We've to look for motives and here it could only be extortion."

That association was hitherto difficult to make. Nagpur and extortion, all this while, have been far removed from one another. Criminal gangs have been slow to take over the city (Gawli tried and was suitably crushed) because it's a sleepy eastward city full of just-retired government officials and professors. Besides, there has been virtually no industrial or construction activity in this city, better known for its oranges and the Tropic of Cancer passing through it. But all that could soon change.

With the Mumbai police up in arms against gangs which have held the city to ransom for decades, hard-core criminals find little room to operate even in their once-preferred hideouts in Pune and Nasik, cities having a closer kinship (and proximity) to Mumbai. And Nagpur, being sleepy and laidback, might now draw gangs wishing to drop anchor in calmer waters. Mishra, though, is determined to check its advance. Says the police commissioner: "I don't yet have all the facts but my sixth sense tells me that white-collar crime is coming to Nagpur. " The kidnapping of the jeweller's grandson, he opines, could well be the beginning of an extortion racket in the Orange City.

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The illicit liquor dens - and brothels in Kantabai's case - operated by the crime queens of Nagpur are thus crucial to both the police and the gangsters. Reason: these are the favourite watering holes for a growing number of criminals. These places also serve as secure shelters for the latter because women who run these places keep devising ways by which police action can be evaded.

For instance, Kantabai, a hefty six-footer, ran a 'chabukmaar sangathana'. Her chabuk (whip) was meant to be used against men who harassed women. But, more importantly, it helped her pass as a social worker. Besides, the whip might have been used on women reluctant to join the flesh trade.

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Kantabai, however, is no foolhardy hothead. She has held eye camps, tried to join the Congress and even sought a ticket to the assembly to evade police action. Fortunately, there were few takers and she is believed to have lost her protection umbrella when she allegedly attempted to blackmail a Congress-ncp bigwig. The Nagpur police have packed off Kantabai to Mumbai for the next one year.

NOTHING else could have worked," says Kumar. "What we have done is the best of urban policing so far and these women were proving to be very dangerous." But considering that most other women behind bars in Nagpur are there for offences committed under section 498(A) (harassment for dowry), isn't the detainment of the three women 'dons' by the police harsh?

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The police, though, are not impressed by the argument that women should be shown more mercy just because they are 'women'. Says Mishra: "The law is fair and does not distinguish (between men and women)." Although the Nagpur trio is yet to acquire the status of Santokhbehn (also known as 'Godmother') of Gujarat or Archana Sharma who was a honey-trap for gangsters like Babloo Srivastava, the police commissioner wants to ensure they don't "get out" by fair means or foul. The rather draconian mpda serves this purpose. Says Mishra: "If I catch a man (or woman?), I must ensure that he does not get out to create even more havoc or it will demoralise the force." His hunch is that in the next "six months to a year" organised crime will become visible in Nagpur.

Action against these women (and some 10 other men) under the mpda is only the beginning of a bigger crackdown before the building mafia takes over. Land sharks exist in Nagpur, but the kind of construction activity in Mumbai and Pune that saw the growth of gangs there is yet to strike roots here.

This comfort might well be short-lived, though. Police officials have kept mum on it, but the old market areas and the quaint townships of Orange City which once distinguished the native areas ruled by the Bhosales from the British enclaves (which are today the city's posher localities) are fast being knocked down to make way for plush commercial complexes. Not surprisingly, these are the very areas where the women gangsters have been active. And if the police are to be believed, largely as fronts for their male relatives (they are all widows). These are also the wholesale market areas which pull in most of Nagpur's money and it's no wonder that the usually indifferent city united to roll down the shutters in Sarafa Bazar this week to protest the kidnapping of the jeweller's grandson.

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Moreover, Sharad Pawar's industry-rich constituency Baramati and the area off Nagpur called Buti Bori - both specially earmarked as industrial zones in the late seventies - too have exhausted their potential like Pune and Nasik. This is reason enough for entrepreneurs to begin looking at Nagpur - the Union civil aviation ministry rebuilt the 'aerodrome' turning it into a regular airport and making room for an international air cargo terminal.

All this activity is bound to beckon the organised gangs to the city. Therefore, by showing little mercy to the three women criminals, the Nagpur police have sent their signal, loud and clear. Even for those who belong to the fairer sex. Mishra has the last word: "You talk of mercy. I say justice will be done - man or woman, juvenile or adult. Take it or leave it." Is the 'blue-stockinged' crime brigade listening?

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