Law and You > Criminal Laws > Criminology > Organized Crimes in India
Organized crime is defined as “those involved, normally working with others, in continuing serious criminal activities for a substantial profit, elsewhere”. The organized crime involves extortion, collection of protection money from rich businessmen, contract killing, kidnapping, film financing, human trafficking, human organ trafficking, drug trafficking, narcotics trafficking, smuggling and illicit trade in Arms and Ammunition. In this article, we shall study organized crimes in India.
In India, criminal gangs have been operating since ancient times. In India, there were groups of people called who used to commit robbery of pilgrims and ascetics followed by their murder. Sometimes, the young children of the travelers used to be spared while killing travelers to groom them to become thugs. It was difficult to prosecute them because they used to operate in a highly secretive manner, professionally and with military precision. A high degree of teamwork and coordination both during the infiltration phase and the moment of the attack made the task of Law Enforcement Agencies tough. The thugs as a criminal tribe seem to mirror many aspects of Italian Mafia. In this article, we shall study organized crime in India.
A police organization known as the Thugee and Dacoity Department was established in India within the Government of India in 1835. William Sleeman was appointed as Superintendent of the. Thousands of men were either put in prison, executed, or expelled from British India. The campaign was heavily based on informant ions received from captured thugs who were offered protection on the condition if they tell everything that they knew. By the 1870s, the Thugee cult was extinct, but the concept of criminal tribes and criminal castes is still in use in India.
In India, Mumbai being the financial capital of the country became a playground of several organized crime gangs. After Independence, due to the prohibition policy adopted by the State of Maharashtra, bootlegging or trade-in illicit liquor became a lucrative business for the criminal gangs. They started making money by supplying illicit liquor to the local citizens in Mumbai.
Varad Rajan Mudaliyar, Hazi Mastan, Yusuf Patel, Karim Lala, Dawood Ibrahim, Amar Naik, Ashwin Naik, Arun Gawali, Chhota Rajan, and Ravi Pujari are examples of persons who started their respective gangs. The main activities of the gangs were/are extortion, collection of protection money from rich businessmen, contract killing, film financing, drug trafficking, smuggling of computer parts and illicit trade in Arms and Ammunition. Crimes like kidnapping, getting flats vacated by force, settling disputes amongst merchants, etc. have become the main source of organized criminal gangs operating in Mumbai.
Organized Crime in Mumbai:
Haji Mastan, Yusuf Patel, and Karim Lala Gangs:
Haji Mastan and Yusuf Patel began as small-scale criminals and later took to smuggling gold and silver. While Mastan and Patel made their millions in gold smuggling, Lala, a Pathan don, dealt in drugs. They made a lot of money and invested it in ‘legitimate’ business ventures, primarily construction and real estate. Haji Mastan made an attempt on Yusuf Patel’s life in the nineteen seventies due to business rivalry but the latter survived. This was the beginning of the gang warfare in Mumbai, which continues unabated to date and has claimed hundreds of lives.
Varadarajan gang:
Varadarajan Mudaliar, popularly known as ‘Vardabhai’ who started as a porter at the Victoria Terminus (VT) Railway station now known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), took to committing theft at the Mumbai Docks and later graduated to bootlegging in the nineteen sixties. He acquired considerable wealth through such activities and also subverted the law enforcement system considerably. In the mid-nineteen-eighties, he became so influential that he used to hold durbars (conclaves) in his area of influence to settle disputes. In later years, he diversified his illegal activities into smuggling, dock thefts and contract killing, Matka gambling, ruling the city’s underground for over a decade till the mid-nineteen eighties.
Dawood Ibrahim Gang:
Dawood Ibrahim, a son of Mumbai Crime Branch Head Constable, started as a petty offender and became a big Mafia of organized crime in the 1970s. He took to smuggling of gold and silver in a big way and started committing crime at large scale with his other brothers. In the year 1980s, Dawood became the most feared gangster of Mumbai. Later he shifted to Dubai due to fear of Law Enforcement Agencies in India. The main activities of the group are extortion, contract killing, film financing, drug trafficking, smuggling of computer parts and illicit trade in Arms and Ammunition. He has also invested a lot of money in various legitimate businesses. Presently he operates from the port city of Karachi in Pakistan.
Arun Gawali Gang:
After the death of Ramya Naik, the mantel of the leadership of his gang fell on the shoulders of Arun Gawli. There have been several inter-gang killings against the Dawood gang, and they have also targeted each other’s political and economic interests. Arun Gawli was sent to prison in 1990 and even though he was granted bail by the Courts, he chose to remain in jail primarily to escape the wrath of the Dawood gang. He continued to run his criminal empire from within the jail premises by passing instructions through his visitors. His gang is involved in the collection of protection money from rich businessmen and also contract killings. He has been convicted for murder on 31st August 2012.
Amar Naik Gang:
This gang originated in the year 1980 and commenced with the collection of protection money from various vegetable vendors in the Dadar area of Mumbai city. When Ram Bhat, the leader of this gang was sentenced to imprisonment in a robbery case, Amar Naik took over the reigns. The main thrust of his criminal activities was to collect hafta (extortion money) from vegetable vendors, hawkers, bootleggers, and smugglers. Amar Naik was killed on August 9, 1996, and the mantle of leadership has now fallen on the shoulders of Ashwin Naik, his younger brother, an engineer by profession.
Chota Rajan Gang:
Chota Rajan commenced his criminal career with the Dawood Ibrahim gang. Hailing from Mumbai’s eastern suburb of Chembur, he started out with extortion. Subsequent to the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, Dawood’s gang was divided on communal lines and Chota Rajan fell out with Dawood and fled from India. He raised a new gang in 1994-95. His areas of operation are in the States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi. He is essentially a drug-trafficker and contract killer.
Babloo Gang in Delhi:
The Bombay underworld dons have over time become role models for other mafia leaders in the country. Kidnapping for ransom is a lucrative business for organized crime offenders in Delhi. In addition, land grabbing and murder have also become part of their criminal activity in Delhi. Srivastava alias Babloo, a Law Graduate, had been active in organized crime in Delhi.
Legal Position In India On Organized Crime :
The Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act:
The increasing activity of organized crime offenders in the city of Mumbai has become a matter of concern to the government of Maharashtra. Therefore, special legislation was adopted entitled The Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act in the year 1999 (MCOCA) and it had been extended in Delhi vide G.S.R. 6 (E) dated 2nd January 2002.
Provisions in the Indian Penal Code:
Section 120 – A and B:
Sec. 120-A of the Indian Penal Code defines criminal conspiracy as: “When two or more persons agree to do, or cause to be done-
- An illegal act, or
- An Act which is not illegal by illegal means. Such an agreement is designated as a criminal conspiracy:
provided that no agreement except an agreement to commit an offence shall amount to a criminal conspiracy unless some act besides the agreement is done by one or more parties to such agreement in pursuance thereof merely incidental to that object”.
Section 120-B of the India Penal Code provides for punishment for criminal conspiracy.
Dacoity and Related Offences
Dacoity is one of the oldest forms of organized crimes in India and is committed purely for the purpose of looting or extortion. Section 391 of the Penal Code defines dacoity as: “When five or more persons conjointly commit or attempt to commit a robbery, or where the whole number of Persons conjointly committing or attempting to commit a robbery, and persons present and aiding such commission or attempt amount to five or more, every person so committing, attempting or aiding is said to commit ‘dacoity’.”
In other words, if five or more persons commit the offence of robbery, they commit ‘dacoity’. Dacoity is punishable with imprisonment for life or rigorous imprisonment for up to 10 years and five months (section 395).
Criminalists preparation to commit dacoity (section 399), assembly for the purpose of committing dacoity (section 402), belonging to a gang of dacoity (Section 400) are punishable under IPC. kidnapping for ransom is punishable under Section 364-A in the Indian Penal Code.