Daughter of a havaldar in Mumbai police, sister of fugitive gangster and mafia queen Haseena Parkar, who once ruled the underworld of City would be ruling the silver screen soon. The teaser of Shraddha Kappor’s much-awaited Haseena Parkar has been released and that takes Mumbai in flashback. Shraddha Kapoor plays a female protagonist for the first time in her career as Haseena. Parkar’s story is surely an interesting one filled with dark secrets of the underworld which people are always excited to watch.
Films based on real life gangsters have been almost a rite of passage for the leading men in Bollywood. Right from Amitabh Bachchan in Deewar (1975), a character that was said to inspired by Haji Mastan to Vinod Khanna in Dayavan (1988) that was a remake of Nayakan (1987) that was loosely based on Varadarajan Mudaliar to Ajay Devgn and Vivek Oberoi transforming into Dawood Ibrahim and Chota Rajan respectively in Company (2002) to Emraan Hashmi and Akshay Kumar becoming Dawood in Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai (2010) and Once Upon a Time in Mumbaii Dobara (2013), etc. Shah Rukh Khan’s Raees is a recent case in point.
Haseena Parkar is an upcoming Indian biographical crime film. The movie is based on terrorist Dawood Ibrahim’s sister Haseena popularly known as “Aapa”- a name that sent shivers in Mumbai’s Nagpada area. A young girl to a mother of four to the Godmother of Nagpada across four decades is story in itself. How her other siblings left Mumbai after 1993 blast and how she took over their legacy in crime world is worth watching story. She used to handle Dawood’s business in Mumbai. Haseena had risen to the crime world after her husband Ismail Parkar was shot dead by the Arun Gawli gang in 1991.
Dawood retaliated by killing the murderers of his brother-in-law at the famous J.J. Hospital shootout. In what is widely regarded as one of the most sensational cases in Mumbai’s gangland history, Gangster Brijesh Singh, Dawood man, along with 24 others, was said to have barged into ward No 18 of the state-run JJ Hospital on September 12, 1992 and killed Shailesh Haldankar, a member of the Arun Gawli gang, who was admitted in the hospital for treatment. Haldankar was killed to avenge the murder of gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s brother-in-law Ismail Parkar, who in turn had been murdered a few days earlier by the Gawli gang. Two Mumbai police constables who were guarding Haldankar were also killed.
Soon after this incident, Haseena shifted to her new den, the Gordon Hall Apartments in Nagpada, from where she headed the crime syndicate. She liked the house so much that it was merely broken into and occupied. No one dared to complain. Known to be involved in almost every business in the area, she got her cut in every shady transaction that she fancied. In return, the godmother took care of her flock. Haseena used to be contacted by builders to help them get “permission” from slum dwellers to redevelop their plot under SRA schemes.
She negotiated overseas rights of Bollywood films, especially of films to be released in Central Russia and the Gulf. She was involved in Hawala rackets to send money from the Middle east to India and vice versa. Cable operators sought the help of the godmother to demarcate areas of operation.
Most of Haseena’s money came from settling construction and property disputes. She ran a crime syndicate of her own and was known for extortion, Hawala rackets, and funding Bollywood movies. She was the one approached by builders for providing homes to the slum dwellers of Nagpada.
Haseena was born in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra to a Marathi Muslim family. Her father Ibrahim Kaskar was a head constable in the Mumbai Police Department and her mother Amina Bi, was a housewife. Her brother Dawood Ibrahim rose to fame by running the crime syndicate D-Company in Mumbai in the 80s. Dawood was the reason their family hogged the limelight. Third of the 12 siblings, Dawood took over the reins of Mumbai and changed the city forever. His antiques finally led him to flee the country and becoming the third most wanted criminal in the world. Haseena was the seventh of the 12 siblings. She too followed Dawood’s path of crime and illegal trades. She had 88 cases to her name but appeared in the court only once.
Haseena was married to Ibrahim Kaskar and the couple had three children, a son Danish and two daughters Qudisya Parkar and Umaida Parkar. In 2014, Haseena was observing Ramzan in the month of July when she complained of chest pain and was taken to the Habib hospital. She died of a massive heart attack.
Haseena’s passport No A2745364 issued on April 5, 1997, was valid until April 6, 2007. However, on February 14, 2005, after visiting the Mumbai Crime Branch she lost her passport. When she applied for a new one, she was denied the passport due to her criminal activities and strong ties with her brother Dawood. Her lawyer Shyam Keswani complained enquiring of a reason for the cancellation of the new passport, but there’s no update on what happened later.Such was Nagpada’s godmother Haseena Parkar. Shraddha Kapoor is all set to take us into the 80s and the life of the gang members. Her real life brother Siddhant Kapoor plays Dawood Ibrahim in the film.
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