Biopics on gangsters is not a new
phenomenon in any film industry in the world. Hollywood began in the 1930s,
with James Cagney portraying gangsters in many of his films, based on
personalities like John Dillinger. Al Capone was the inspiration behind
Scarface in 1931. The Sicilian mafia in New York during its heydays also
inspired many literary and celluloid works, most notably among them the
Godfather (1972) which remains a classic, whose sequel Godfather II too was one
of the , Films like Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995) , Donnie Brasco (1997)
were examples of films based on true events involving Italian American mafia. There
have been a lot of films about Hispanic mafia as well, notably Scarface (1983),
Traffic (2000) or the ongoing TV series Narcos.
In India too, gangsters like Haji Mastan
(Amitabh Bachchan’s Vijay in Deewar ,1975), Karim Lala (Pran’s Sher Khan in
Zanjeer, 1973), Vardarajan Mudaliar (A superb Kamal Hassan in Nayagan, 1987 and
later an average Vinod Khanna in a much poorer Dayavan, 1988), Dawood Ibrahim
(In several sub par films not worth remembering) have been lionized in the film
industry, in addition to several non specific gangster films that keep churning
out.
The latest to join the list is Shahrukh
Khan starrer Raees, to be released soon.
Raees Alam i.e Shah Rukh Khan's
character in Raees is a Gujarat based gangster who builds his criminal empire
by bootlegging illicit liquor. Although not confirmed by film's makers, it is almost
certainly based on real-life gangster Abdul Latif who was a terror throughout
Gujarat. In order to prepare for the character, Shah Rukh Khan visited Abdul
Latif's son Mustak Ahmed Abdul Latif Shaikh, at least twice, but backed out
from meeting him more after his meetings began to be given a political colour.
Mustak too has filed a case against the film’s makers because they have shown
the titular character running a brothel and using female bootleggers.
For starters, this is Abdul Latif’s great and inspirational legacy:-
Info: After his arrest in 1995.
Born in Kalupur, Ahmedabad, in 1951
Latif , coming from a large and poor family, started out working in his
father’s shop but fell out with him in his 20s. He began his career as a
delivery boy in 1980s for bootleggers, waiting tables in gambling dens. Through
murder, extortion and political patronage, he slowly grew big enough to monopolize
the illicit liquor business of Gujarat. In his heyday, his criminal empire in Gujarat extended from
bootlegging and hawala to land deals and contract killings. He was politically
very well connected, and had a Robin Hood like image among the low income
Muslims. According to anecdotes, Latif would help underprivileged and backward
Muslim youth get jobs and would provide the needy among them with necessities. He ran a parallel justice system and always ensured that his gang
were predominantly Muslim . In the words of a Gujarat police officer, after his
arrest, "There were fireworks in the Hindu areas”. In 1986, Latif was elected simultaneously from five municipal wards
in Ahmedabad despite being in jail at the time of the polls. However, he was
later disqualified from the post, but it showed the support he had among the
Muslims. This caused him to be used by various politicians, especially those
from the Congress, by helping to rig various elections and settle personal
scores and they returned the favour of
them shielding him (Hasan Lala, the Gujarat Youth Congress President in those
days was his childhood friend). His role in frequent communal riots during
those days was very evident, and so was his role in breaking up anti Congress
protests (Something that the news traders harping about 2002 are happy to sweep
under the carpet).
Latif was much more than a mere
bootlegger. He was everything what any person joining the likes of Lashkar e
Taiyabba and Hizb ul Mujahideen would aspire to be. From extortion to murders
to riots , there was no crime which he did not have a hand in. After his arrest, Latif revealed to investigators
that during his 15-month stay in Karachi between August 1993 and December 1994,
he would meet Dawood "almost daily." Its interesting to note that at
one time in the early 1980s, he was involved in a gangwar against Dawood’s gang,
and peace between them was brokered by a maulana in Dubai in 1989. This was the
beginning of Latif venturing into terrorism, and being seen as a name synonymous
with crime and as a product of the Congress’s minority appeasement. Although his name wasn’t among the 198 accused
in connection to the 1993 Mumbai multiple blasts, Latif was heavily suspected
to have been a conduit for the RDX smuggled into the country that was used in
the blasts, since he is also alleged to have had a hand in receiving and
distributing arms smuggled into the country through villages on the western
coast regularly. He is also suspected to have supplied arms to Khalistani
terrorists, and received a consignment
of 47 AK-56 rifles. 300 hand-grenades and 15.000 rounds of ammunition in 1993
from the Dubai-based arms smuggler Mustafa Majnu. a close Dawood aide. Even
before the blasts, he was involved in several murders, the most notorious being
the shooting in October 1992 of Raul Waliullah, the then general secretary of the
Gujarat Pradesh Congress. Waliullah was said to have been preparing a
memorandum for the prime minister detailing the late chief minister Chimanbhai
Patel's (Latif’s allegedly biggest patron) alleged criminal links.
His brutality was well known for
liquidating rivals, the most infamous being the Radhika Gymkhana multiple
murders of August 1992. Latif sent his hitmen to the gymkhana to murder Hansraj Trivedi, a rival bootlegger. Since
the assassins couldn't recognise Trivedi, they shot all the nine people in the
room.
Pic: Radhika Gymkhana murders
Late Haren Pandya who won the by-elections to
the Ellisbridge assembly seat on a BJP ticket in 1993, used to tell only one
thing to the voters: "When you go out to vote, don't forget Latif".
"It would not be wrong to say Abdul Latif laid the foundations of the
BJP's climb to power on its own strength in Gujarat," said a retired director general of Gujarat Police.
From then state level leaders like Narendra Modi and Shankarsingh Waghela to
the eventual CM Keshubhai Patel, everyone in BJP during the 1995 elections were sure to target
Latif and his ties with Dawood Ibrahim and Congress. Latif fled Gujarat after
BJP won the 1995 elections. He was arrested in Oct 1995 after a two month long
operations from New Delhi because of one error he made : using the same
telephone booth for all his calls.
Latif had been implicated in over 97 cases, 10
of them involving murder and a number of them relating to bootlegging. Since
1982, the Gujarat Police registered 243 cases against Lalif's gang, including
64 murders and 14 kidnappings.
Pic:
Abdul Latif after his arrest.
After Latif's arrest, Gujarat CM Keshubhai
Patel was hailed 'Hindu Hriday Samrat'. Latif, since his arrest, had been
lodged in the Sabarmati Central jail. On November 29, 1997,
Latif allegedly tried to escape after he was brought back to his jail
following an investigation. He was shot dead by the police in retaliation.
Baniye ka dimaag aur Miyaanbhai ki daring
is what Raees Alam, the titular character in Raees talks about, is the reason
behind his ‘’success’’.
Baniya. That’s one word in which a huge
multitude of jihadi mindset encompass Hindus, implying that a Hindu can be
nothing but a cowardly shopkeeper. That was the inspiration for Yahya Khan’s
rhetoric in 1965 that Pakistan will easily win the war as one muslim is equal
to ten hindus .‘Hindu baniye ki saazish’ is what our beloved neighbor calls the
1971 war as in popular discourse. Under the twisted notion of secularism in
India, this kind of derogatory remarks will be hailed as something great by
various bunch of glossy fecal publications which go by the name of film
magazines.
As evident from the film’s trailer, Raees
Alam is shown as a larger than life action figure, singing and dancing with his
lady love, and looking at the sheer number of hits on this video, which come
from public which has got zero interest in anything in a film except the actors
looks and dialogues, we can see where this is going. Soon, we will have our
leftist intellectuals crying on TV how a poor Muslim social worker was killed
by BJP RSS goons in police uniform, and how secularism is in danger due to such
arrests and encounters. We could also have biopics on Abu Salem , Burhan Wani
and maybe once again Dawood Ibrahim, showing them as young men who were forced
to take the wrong path due to injustice meted on them.
Because no stupidity is enough in this
country.
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