Transcript

MAHER: Hello I’m Michael Maher in Mumbai, India’s maximum city, where the cops and gangsters are locked in a deadly battle for control of the streets.

Population twenty million and still growing, everything about this city is geared to maximum – maximum wealth, maximum poverty, maximum violence, maximum fame. Today thousands more will crush into Mumbai to chase down good fortune. A few will find it, many more will disappear without a trace.

HUSSAIN ZAIDI: Speed is synonymous with Bombay. It’s very fast, very hectic. There’s no let up at all. All the time you have to be on your toes, especially in my profession.

MAHER: Hussain Zaidi is Mumbai’s leading crime reporter.

HUSSAIN ZAIDI: This is the New York of India where we have lots of money coming in, people come here to make their fortune. We have real estate here, we have share market, we have film industry. We have all kinds of business booming here. The criminals get attracted by money. They get drawn to the city because they realise that there’s a potential for them to make big money.

MAHER: At the Mumbai Mirror, today’s deadlines loom.

HUSSAIN ZAIDI: It’s a good human interest story.

EDITOR: Do you have a picture?

HUSSAIN ZAIDI: I’ve sent someone to get a picture.

MAHER: In this fiercely competitive market the pressure is on to break stories and when it comes to selling newspapers crime pays.

EDITOR: I want pictures of all the fourteen homes.

HUSSAIN ZAIDI: Crime reporting has become a vortex of other beats as well. It’s a junction where you see politics comes and meets - where even Bollywood has a nexus with the mafia, where real estate is somewhat dependent on crime, where even cops, you know they are linked with the criminals. So it’s like a huge crossroads where all the other important beats come and meet. And as a crime reporter, I’m standing in the middle.

MAHER: Armed with his Editor’s brief, Hussain takes me out on a tour of his beat, the city’s ganglands. Known locally as the Sicily of Mumbai, these mean streets spawned the biggest Godfather of them all, Dawood Ibrahim.

HUSSAIN ZAIDI: We are just entering into Jongri. Jongri is the birthplace of Bombay mafia.

MAHER: Is it possible to get out there and film?

HUSSAIN ZAIDI: No, no don’t even try doing that. It’s a very dangerous part. Ah we can get into trouble easily. These guys are notorious for beating up journalists. On the right side we will do, see a street [INAUDIBLE] which is the birthplace of Dawood Ibrahim in Bombay.

MAHER: So Dawood the leader of the gang?

HUSSAIN ZAIDI: Yeah the leader of the gang. Dawood who is designated as a global terrorist was born here in a small room of ten feet by ten feet. His father was the head constable.

MAHER: So he was born down that street there?

HUSSAIN ZAIDI: Yeah down that street there, yeah. He’s the biggest gang lord of the country. He and other gangsters have grown up, grown up in the street and you know after growing up in these streets of Mumbai which is like the lower-middle class area, now they are the people who have like, who are billionaires. They have posh mansions, a fleet of cars, yachts, private jets – everything. So you can imagine how they’ve grown in the span of two decades.

MAHER: So notorious are Dawood Ibrahim and his gang that Bollywood is now telling their story on the silver screen. “D” is playing to packed houses and in celebrity obsessed Mumbai, the line between fact and fiction is very thin.

RAM GOPAL VARMA: [Movie director] The irony of him being the son of a police constable in the crime branch and to become the biggest gang lord of all and so he knows, he knows the city, he knows the maybe the cops and he knows the things so you just feel that it is just like a very thought about decision like someone wants to be a doctor, someone wants to be an engineer and he chose to be a gangster. So that mindset I thought would be very interesting to capture on screen.

DIALOGUE FROM FILM: If you shoot even one bullet at me there will be so many bullets in your head that there won’t be any room for your brain.

RAM GOPAL VARMA: I think the uniqueness in the gangs of Mumbai I would think or at least compared to any other part of the world, they are like so much a part of the city. You know you just don’t know where they start or end.

MAHER: Off screen, Dawood Ibrahim’s battle with the police for control of the city’s streets continues apace. This is Inspector Pradeep Sharma. Cool, calm and calculating, Sharma is the cop from central casting. He’s personally shot dead more than a hundred gangsters. These shootings are known to everyone as “encounters”.

So in the fight between the gangs of Mumbai and the police, who is winning?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Now we are having the upper hand.

MAHER: You’ve got the upper hand at the moment?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Yeah.

MAHER: This cache of arms destined for the ganglands has just been seized by Sharma and his men. The self-styled Dirty Harry of Mumbai, Sharma calls Dawood and his gang “filth” and has declared himself “the cleaner”.

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Naturally they are filth. We have to clean them from our society. They are harassing innocent people, innocent businessmen, just for the sake of money. They’re just killing them. I have carried out more than 100 operations, gang members, terrorists - some were terrorists, some were drug traffickers.

MAHER: So you’ve killed more than a 100 gangsters?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: 100 at least.

MAHER: And in what circumstances did you kill them?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: In self defence.

MAHER: So they always fire at you first?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Mm yep.

MAHER: And is there a price on your head? I mean the gangs must be very keen to see the end of you?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: For the last nine or ten years they’ve been trying to.

MAHER: They’re trying to kill you?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Yeah.

MAHER: So what price is there on your head? Do you know what price?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: [Laughs] You’ll have to ask them.

MAHER: Inspector Sharma promises we’ll meet some of those who would have him dead when he takes us out on an operation in a few days time. Mumbai is nothing, if not a city of stark contrasts. While Inspector Sharma and the gangsters fight it out down here on the streets, up in Mumbai’s more genteel precincts, the Gods of fashion, money and stardom are being worshipped with a frantic intensity. After all, this is India’s City of Dreams and its devotees flock here in their millions to embrace the myth.

In Mumbai’s ritziest hotel, the Taj Mahal, the city’s elite are at play – industrialists, models and film stars revel in their success. There’s nowhere else they’d rather be.

BIKRAM: [At hotel] Bombay is very lively. It has for a person who is starting out in life, if he has that ability to give everything of himself to the city, the city will make him.

VAJIA: [At hotel] The city actually never sleeps you know, it’s working entire night. I mean people are working all the day hard and the night they really party. It’s a lot of fun.

RAVI: [At hotel] They say about certain cities you can feel an energy. I think that’s true of Mumbai, true of Shanghai and it’s true of New York. I think it defies any single definition. I mean it’s a city with many layers you know? A lot of people say it’s like an onion, you just keep peeling it and there are more and more layers and I think you know, it’s a very vibrant and exciting city.

MAHER: Few in Mumbai are as familiar with the city’s more rarefied layers than Simi Garewal. A former Bollywood siren, she now interviews the high and mighty on her popular talk show.

SIMI GAREWAL: I look at Mumbai really as the big casino you know what I mean? I think people come from all over India to this big casino to play and to win and they could play on the small slot machines, the wayside ones or they could play in the exclusive big roller rooms, but everybody is gambling for the future and everybody wants to win, and the person next to him can have just hit the jackpot.

MAHER: Everyone wants to win but there are a lot of losers as well aren’t there?

SIMI GAREWAL: That’s also in a casino. In every casino it’s there but hope is there you see. You go into a casino with hope and they come into Mumbai with hope to win.

MAHER: The gangsters themselves are perhaps the biggest gamblers of all. At the height of the gang wars at least 100 people were dying in shoot outs each year. Crime reporter Hussain Zaidi has arranged for us to meet one of his underworld contacts at an inner city hotel. A member of the Dawood gang and known to us only as “the manager”, he’s agreed to speak so long as he remains anonymous.

THE MANAGER: It is a striking lifestyle. I have freedom, and I feel very powerful. I have a lot of money and can do whatever I want, whenever I want. I have already enjoyed my life and had my share of fun and now I am just waiting for my punishment.

MAHER: Like other Mumbai gangsters, the Manager’s greatest fear is that his punishment could come in the form of Inspector Pradeep Sharma.

THE MANAGER: Of course they’re scared. If someone has committed seven or eight murders - even if they should be arrested, if Sharma finds them he will kill them on the spot. He kills gangsters on the spot. He has a good network.

MAHER: The appointed day arrives and we meet Inspector Sharma once again as he prepares to go out on an operation. Today’s target is a group of kidnappers stalking its quarry outside an exclusive club. The Inspector’s informant rings ahead with the latest intelligence.

INSPECTOR SHARMA: [On telephone] What are they wearing? Black shoes [writing details down on notepad]. At Kamal Vihar Sports Club? [Motions to Maher to go and takes out his gun].

MAHER: I hope you don’t have to use it.

INSPECTOR SHARMA: We’ll see. [Calls to his assistant] Hey, come here, Sunil. Where are your weapons? How about you? Have you got one? Get an AK-47.

MAHER: The convoy heads out into Mumbai’s traffic towards the sports club.

INSPECTOR SHARMA: We’ll park our vehicles a distance away from that place. Then three of four men will go over there and I will follow them.

MAHER: So these people are waiting, they’re trying to kidnap someone coming out of the club?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Yeah, yeah.

MAHER: Sharma issues instructions as his men move in to make the arrests.

So what’s happening now Inspector? Your men are going out to do what?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Now they will spread out in that direction.

MAHER: So where are the kidnappers that you’re trying to catch?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Some distance away.

MAHER: Further down the road are they?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Yeah.

MAHER: And these men are armed?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Oh they are. See now they are crossing over.

MAHER: He’s got his weapon out.

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Yeah.

[Arrests being made]

INSPECTOR SHARMA: [With one arrested man] Get the car!

ARRESTED MAN: Sir, listen to me for two minutes!

MAHER: So how many people have you arrested, the three of them?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: The three of them.

MAHER: This man here was armed was he?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Yeah. [Looking at gun] Made in USA.

MAHER: So are you pleased with how the operation went Inspector?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Yeah, yeah definitely am pleased. So many people were involved in that.

MAHER: How many people actually involved in the operation?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Eight to ten persons.

MAHER: Back at the police station the interrogation begins.

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Tell me where you’re from!

ARRESTED MAN: From Uttar Pradesh, sir.

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Where in Uttar Pradesh? Huh? Where?

POLICE OFFICER: Why did you come? Tell us!

ARRESTED MAN: They brought me here.

POLICE OFFICER: Where are you from? Where do you come from?

ANOTHER ARRESTED MAN: From Bihar.

ARRESTED MAN: [While being hit] Sir, sir, please just listen to me sir. Please just listen to me once.

MAHER: That’s pretty harsh treatment isn’t it? That’s pretty brutal treatment of the people you’ve captured.

POLICE OFFICER: You have to be a little tough with them. We don’t beat them physically – we don’t do that physically. We just frighten them.

POLICE OFFICER: [To arrested man while hitting him] Where is he? Tell me where he is!

ARRESTED MAN: Sir… Sir!

MAHER: We’ve seen the prison’s interrogators and very harsh treatment is meted out to them. They use a cattle prod, an electric prod.

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Just to frighten them - a psychological treatment.

ARRESTED MAN: [Being prodded with electric prod] I have nothing else to say. We don’t have anything else to tell you.

POLICE OFFICER: It does not affect them - but then the spark frightens them off.

MAHER: Do you think it’s fair enough to use harsh tactics like that?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: No, no… we are not using these tactics, but just…it’s a psychological war.

POLICE OFFICER: [To arrested man while pointing a gun at him] Why don’t we just shoot him?

MAHER: Despite his ruthless tactics, Hussain Zaidi says Sharma is a tabloid reporter’s dream.

HUSSAIN ZAIDI: In the 39,000 strong police force in Bombay, Sharma is the only hero.

MAHER: He’s a pretty major killer though isn’t he? I mean he’s killed more…

HUSSAIN ZAIDI: He has killed 104 people in encounters so far. I mean 104 gangsters rather. And so far he has never got into trouble with the human rights and other activists.

MAHER: Let’s focus on this term “encounters” cause really it’s a rather cute word meaning “to kill” isn’t it?

HUSSAIN ZAIDI: Yeah. The thing is that the cops have realised and it has evolved as well that the gangsters understand the language of the bullet. They won’t understand the criminal justice system so what actually… these guys who are supposed to be encounter specialists - they realise it’s better to kill these people. Once you kill a criminal you eliminate the crime.

DIALOGUE FROM FILM: I’m on several guy’s hitlists. When someone comes to kill me I’m not going to wait for orders - I’ll pull out my rod.

MAHER: Like the gangster Dawood Ibrahim, Inspector Pradeep Sharma’s story has also been committed to celluloid. Bollywood too has embraced encounter cops as heroes of the city.

RAM GOPAL VARMA: I feel they’re most likely necessary. You know it’s easy to blame them - how can you shoot in cold blood, you know? But I guess they’re like doctors I would think - you know, they just cure. I mean it sounds romantic to put it like that but in a city like Mumbai where the gangs, because of the loopholes in the legal system, kind of go out of control once in a while. They act like checkmates. You know? It’s like a power balance more than anything else.

DIALOGUE FROM FILM: Self defence is not the department’s responsibility - one has to do it on his own. If you kill someone you need not necessarily get a medal, but make one mistake and you go to hell.

MAHER: So in other words Bollywood and in the films that you make, the attitude towards these encounter cops is a pretty positive one?

RAM GOPAL VARMA: Absolutely, yeah it is.

MAHER: Unlike these men, so far “the Manager” from the Dawood gang has alluded Sharma but he says an encounter is inevitable.

THE MANAGER: I know my life is short. He can arrest anyone. He’s someone who keeps a person tied up and locked up for over two days and then comes at night and takes him to some remote place, unties his hands and shoots him.

MAHER: Heroes or extrajudicial killers, Pradeep Sharma and his men have succeeded in subduing Mumbai’s gangs. It’s zero tolerance maximum city style, fighting crime through fear and the barrel of a gun.

I mean how do you feel when you shoot a criminal?

INSPECTOR SHARMA: It’s a question of our lives. So we are not thinking in terms of the lives of the criminals. It’s a question of fractions of seconds. You have to decide who is doing to die - he or ourselves?

MAHER: A bullet for a bullet.

INSPECTOR SHARMA: Naturally.