WHILE the police are tapping at their computer key-boards, the criminals are one step ahead—they have already set up databanks. And that is not all. Bombay's powerful underworld now employs the most hi-tech gadgetry in the business. They are armed with sophisticated weapons, very high frequency communication sets, and those who have diversified into smuggling evenuse satcom facilities to keep up on-ship links.
Their 'business' requires it, and funds are not a problem. The smugglers use satellite links to get in touch with anyone in the country and arrange landings which require perseverance and precision, says Customs Collector M.D. Venugopalan.
The gangs' array of latest weapons and gadgets is keeping the police on their toes. Says M.N. Singh, former joint commissioner of police (crime): "They go for the best. They rent 'safe houses'—well-equipped flats—by paying large sums of money, as in the Mittal kidnapping case. They spend extensively on arms and hi-tech gadgets." He recounts how a close circuit television and an exit at the rear of Mohammad Dossa's Nagdevi street office helped him escape following the Bombay blasts. Dossa, one of the accused in the blasts, fled the country subsequently.
Last year, when 36 members of the Amar Naik gang were rounded up, the police discovered that all the key members were provided pagers and mobikes. The police say that while pagers were used by criminals as early as in 1993, their use has become more rampant now. "They were probably among the first to acquire pagers," says a criminal lawyer, who first learnt about them from a client.
Among the arms recovered from Naik's gang was a sophisticated Austrian-made Glock pistol, a light, non-metallic weapon used by undercover agents in the West but by scarcely anyone in India. The Glock was used by Amar Naik. "They could be buying these from militants or smugglers—the two main sources. But the point is that they are spending huge sums on arming themselves," says a weapons expert on the Naik arms cache, which included a Russian 9 mm Tokarev, a 9 mm Chinese-made pistol apart from the regular .38 Smith & Wesson and .30 Springfield once used by the US Army.
Very high frequency communication sets, speedboats that can reverse, more advanced and foolproof methods of smuggling narcotics—all these have made law enforcement that much tougher. "The criminal will be a step ahead of you no matter what system you employ. The police's role is reactive; our operations begin only after they have started running," says Singh. Adds Rahul Rai Sur, former DCP (Narcotics). "The places of concealment are getting very sophisticated. For instance, drugs concealed in a diesel engine requires the knowledge of how to open and reassemble it in a manner which escapes detection."
The old-timers were into bootlegging, and gold and silver smuggling. Today's gangsters are running empires. "The stakes are much higher," says a senior policeman. For instance, the fantastic profits they earn—up to 500 per cent in the narcotics trade—are pumped back into real estate, hotels, film financing and travel agencies. And big bucks spell big trouble.
