Recently, ‘Meow Meow queen’ hit the headlines and jailed for drug peddling Shashikala, better known as Baby Patankar. She was remanded to judicial custody by a special court in Mumbai on May 6 after 14 days in the custody of the Mumbai Police Crime Branch. Patankar has been named as a wanted accused in the case registered at the Khandala Police Station in Satara district on March 9, after the consignment of drugs was seized from Police constable Dharmaraj Kalokhe’s home. So far, investigations have revealed that she had been travelling across Maharashtra and Goa for at least a week in early March. Youngsters in the city are high on ‘Meow Meow’, a new drug in the city. Rave parties are getting enthusiastic to the new drug, and the city’s bands are said to be heavily into it. The reason behind this drug gaining popularity is because it can be ordered online and will be delivered at your doorstep. The drug is not in the list of banned drugs under the Narcotics, Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (NCB) Act, 1958. Patankar is not the first lady involved in these underworld’s crime activities. She was recently caught by the police but Mumbai’s history is evident that in underworld woman are walking with the man in this immoral empire.
There is a book by Tammy Cohen detailing out firsthand accounts of the women married literally to mafia. It features spouses of UK drug lord Howard Marks, street-fighter-turned Don Reginal Cray; Jenny Pinto of gangster Dave Courtney and likes. There is also a novel on gangsters’ wives forming their own parallel gangs to counter the ones run by their hubbies and they succeed.
Not many remember the USA-based drug lord who was trapped by F.B.I. agents posing as drug-traffickers and he waved to the crowds flanked by his wife on his acquittal on the fronds that F.B.I. lured him into the deal and he was not involved otherwise. The defence was her brain-child. I still remember the TIME magazine picture of the couple in early seventies. She called up her kids from outside the court and said “we have won darling”. Here in Mumbai also, we have had Hasina Parkar, Sujata Nikalje, Asha Gawli; and not at par with them but still somewhere near them; Monica Bedi; a matinee idol of the times gone by. These women are directly related to the dons and have been participating in the gangs’ activities.
Hasina Parker
Hasina Parker infamously known as Hasina Apa; the elder sister of the longest reigning and most glamorous Don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar. Bhai loves his sister and vice-versa. She looks after the Mumbai-based property of the Family in South Mumbai areas sprawling from Nagpada to Dongri. The Bhai’s sister starts late evenings for collection of rent and general monitoring. During these rounds, she also settles property disputes and gives audience to the real-estate developers over a range of issues such as Slum rehabilitation. Last year, she breathed her last.
There was a complaint against her and a builder, by a rival developer over an SRA site. The compliant culminated into another complaint of corruption against the investigating officer and for the first time the Anti-Corruption Bureau raided the premises of Crime Branch Unit 1 in the police Head Quarters and seized the cell phones of the officers. There was a very embarrassing compromise hatched and Hasina Apa got scot-free from the investigations. In another incident, a file related to other case against Hasina Apa got misplaced from Bombay High Court. The aged Bohri Muslim complainant was silenced. Like Dawood bhai is immortal and inaccessible; Apa too is inaccessible and untouchable till her death.
Mrs. Sujata Rajan Nikalje
She is well known as wife of underworld Don Chhota Rajan. The two got married in Dubai when Chhota Rajan and Dawood Ibrahim were pals. The two best companions split over some communal feelings that divided Mumbai underworld on communal lines after 1993 serial bomb blasts that rocked the city.
Sujata came to limelight in the underworld operations when the Mumbai crime branch arrested her over a charge of extortion and money-laundering. Around a dozen of Don’s confidantes spent time behind bars in the same case. She is now being sought after by the enforcement agencies in a case of siphoning off funds. The undercover operations of Bhabhi or Wahinisaheb [slang for sister-in-law or elder brother’s wife] is no more an unknown entity in the underworld where Money never Sleeps.
Asha Arun Gawli
Asha Gawli alias Mummy is the wife of Arun Gawli, who is lodged in jail in Shiv Sena’s corporator’s murder case, and he is out on parole for his son’s wedding. Asha Gawli was a Muslim before she got married to Arun Gawli. She was investigated in 1998 for the murder of a man connected with her husband, a former underworld figure. On December 19, 2004, Mumbai police registered a complaint against her for alleged assault and wrongful confinement of a woman. She was arrested and accused of beating a woman named Sushma Sawant with sticks. She was later released. In addition to campaigning for her husband (including during his imprisonment), she stood herself for the Legislative Assembly for Khed – Alandi in 1999.
Monica Bedi
The matinee idol got entangled in the underworld with Abu Salem; a one-time protégée of Dawood Ibrahim. She made her come back and very well got into the dreams of Bollywood.
