My days in the Underworld. Rise of Bangalore Mafia

429 Pages·2013·2.38 MB·English

by  Agni Sreedhar

TRANQUEBAR PRESS

MY DAYS IN THE UNDERWORLD

Agni Sreedhar is publisher and editor of the Kannada tabloid Agni. He
recounted his experiences in the underworld in the bestselling
Dadagiriya Dinagalu, which won the Karnataka State Sahitya
Akademi Award. He has six other works to his credit, all of which
have run into multiple editions. He also writes extensively on quantum
philosophy and his book In the Path of Modern Mages, based on his
personal experiences, is considered a classic in Kannada.

A film based on his life, Aa Dinagalu, which he scripted with

award-winning playwright Girish Karnad, received critical acclaim.
His other films, Slum Bala, Kallara Santhe and Edegarike, also
received popular and critical acclaim. Thamassu, on communal
intolerance, which he scripted and directed, received the Karnataka
State Award for Best Story.

He is also actively involved in social causes and is at the forefront

of the agitation against mining in Karnataka.

MY DAYS IN THE
UNDERWORLD

Rise of the Banglore Mafia

Agni Sreedhar

TRANQUEBAR PRESS
An imprint of westland ltd

61 Silverline, Alapakkam Main Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600095
No. 38/10 (New No.5), Raghava Nagar, New Timber Yard Layout,
Bangalore 560 026
93, 1st floor, Sham Lal Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002

First published in India by TRANQUBAR, on imprint of westland ltd
2013

First e-book edition: 2013

Copyright © Agni Sreedhar 2013

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-93-83260-34-8

Typeset in Sabon Roman by SÜRYA, New Delhi

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circulated, and no
reproduction in any form, in whole or in part (except for brief
quotations in critical articles or reviews) may be made without written
permission of the publishers.

DEDICATED

. . . to all the boys who travelled with me on this journey

Contents

Part I

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five

Part II

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight

Part III

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven

Part IV

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three

Chapter Four
Chapter Five

Part V

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven

Introduction

Most people have a distorted image of the underworld. To a large
extent the media propagates this distortion by glorifying and
glamorising the life of crime.

I lived this life for twenty years. This is my attempt to demystify

Bangalore’s criminal networks. It is an effort at presenting the true
nature of this city’s substratum to the reading public.

I began by writing about my experiences in my weekly Kannada

tabloid Agni in 1999. The column ran for four years and the readers’
response was overwhelming. On public demand it was published in
three volumes and became a bestseller. It won critical acclaim and was
conferred the Karnataka Sahitya Academy award.

When I started compiling my recollections, I called it a search.
There was a time in my life when strange eyes followed me at all

times. Invisible ears listened to every word I uttered. I could not
simply dismiss this as the daily throb of this beast that lies under the
city—the monster that I helped make.

There was a world of difference between what lay within me and

that which existed without. The harshness, fear, torture, deceit and
scheming realm of lawlessness posed a challenge to my conscience. I
had to get out of it but I did not know how. Writing, to some extent,
meant release. Writing changed me and helped me to unravel what I’d
done. It also created strange conflicts in me. Cold-blooded criminals
began to look helpless, and the line between the two worlds—under
and ‘over’— became thin. I began to feel as though we were on a
journey. How could I change the world around me? Was it even
remotely possible? Contemplating such questions, I bided my time.

Realisation dawned on me. It was not the world that needed to

change, but I. The world is fine, with a comfortable mix of this and
that. What was topsy-turvy was within me. I needed to transform. I
had travelled too far into the crime world. I could not see the road to
recovery. I had to make great efforts to get on the right path. But just
as I found a road I was drawn to another point of no return. People
who promised to show me the path led me away from it. It was a tough

fight. I finally found my way, found myself.

I am happy that my book is now available in English translation.

Thanks to V.G. Jaideep and Prathibha Nandakumar, without whom it
would have been impossible.

Thanks to the publishers, Westland.
I dedicate this book to all those who travelled with me. And to those

who stood by me.

Bangalore

AGNI SREEDHAR

PART I

One

It was the summer of 1974 when I came to Bangalore. I was fresh out
of college from Kanakapura, an hour’s drive from the state capital, and
had decided to study law here before eventually entering the civil
services.

It was morning when I got off at the bus station in Majestic, and

though I had been to Bangalore before, the city never ceased to
overwhelm—around me were scores of buses, bringing in people from
all corners of Karnataka; people like me. And outside, the crowds
flowed; knots of men and women headed purposefully somewhere.
This city I was stepping into was entirely different from the town I
grew up in. Though a mere fifty kilometres away, Kanakapura was
small and dull: it had no parks, one movie theatre, one good hotel and
one small river that was dry most of the time.

As soon as I got off the bus, I made my way through the crowds and

headed for the Vokkaligara Sangha Hostel. This establishment, run for
members of Karnataka’s dominant Vokkaliga community, was part of
a larger educational institution, which would later expand into one of
the largest in the state, offering courses in medicine and engineering. I
had enrolled into the Vokkaligara Sangha Law College and turned out
to be quite good at my studies, usually wrapping my head around
complicated legal arguments much before the lecturer had finished
explaining them.

At the hostel, I headed for my room. It was small—three cots, three

tables and barely enough room to move around. I unpacked my books:
about fifty by prominent Kannada litterateurs; my three favourite
writers, Camus, Kafka and Sartre; and, of course, The Godfather. My
roommates,
Venugopal
and
Muddahanume
Gowda,
seemed

completely in awe of this library unfolding before their eyes. Both
were in their second year and would go on to have successful careers
as officers of the bar: years later, accused as a criminal, I would stand
in the dock before Gowda, who was then a magistrate. Worse still,
when he decided to resign and contest elections from Kunigal, I
campaigned for him, along with the politician S. Ramesh, much to

Gowda’s consternation. Gowda went on to become a member of the
legislative assembly from the Kunigal constituency. Venugopal was a
public prosecutor for a significant portion of his professional life and
now serves as a senior civil lawyer.

But my roommates’ success came much later; while at college, the

two looked at me with respect—for my interest in literature and
inherent grasp of the English language—and they believed my
gumption would take me places, despite the apparent disadvantages of
my small-town upbringing.

The study of law was a leisurely activity when I was in college.

Classes would end at ten in the morning and the rest of the day was
spent in idle banter and gossip. When conversation wasn’t centred on
girls, it would veer towards crime and rowdies and the two names that
featured constantly in our conversations were M.P. Jayaraj and K.M.
Nagraj—two of the most powerful figures in Bangalore. Every college
was aligned with one of these two men, their affiliates or someone
with a criminal persuasion. It was especially crucial for students
contesting college elections to be seen as protégés of these overlords,
and victory hinged on the number of rowdies providing their patronage
to a particular candidate. At the time, three institutions—Vokkaligara
Sangha, R.C. College and the Government Arts and Science (or more
popularly, Gas) College—were the Petri dishes for what would later
emerge as Bangalore’s underground. It was in these three colleges that
the nexus between politics, crime and the student body took root.

K.M. Nagraj had a twofold agenda. He fostered rowdies and

students with a view to gain political mileage. A leader of the Indira
Brigade, the Congress party’s youth wing, Nagraj had determined very
early on that forging links with the underworld and student bodies
would serve his political career well. Needless to say, Nagraj had
powerful patrons, among them Dayanada Sagar, who would go on to
create one of Karnataka’s largest educational institutions. Nagraj’s
days were spent in a state of constant struggle—to garner the support
of as many rowdies as possible, to wield power over as many colleges
as possible, to gain control over south Bangalore, and in intricate
political machinations.

M.P. Jayaraj was the polar opposite of Nagraj. He existed for one

reason alone: to be the number one player in the city’s underworld. He
entered and lived a life of crime purely for the sake of villainy.
Propped up by M.D. Natraj, the son-in-law of the then chief minister

Devaraj Urs, Jayaraj was the de facto head of the Indira Brigade and
consequently sat at the centre of a power struggle between Nagraj and
Natraj. When he was not embroiled in the workings of the underworld,
Jayaraj ran a rag called Garibi Hatao (Eradicate Poverty), cleaving to
the Socialist mantra parroted by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi.
Headquartered in the seedy and overpopulated Tigalara Pet, Garibi
Hatao was nothing if not sensationalist, and mainly targeted a corrupt
and inept police force.

If Jayaraj and Nagraj were paterfamilias to two large, complex and

divisive tribes consisting of goons, students, politicians and sundry
hangers-on, Razor Vasu and Mohammaden Block Ali (named for his
origins in the Muslim quarter of south Bangalore) were the twin
avuncular enforcers of a parallel justice system; one that was presided
over by Jayaraj. No one could reliably claim to have actually seen
either Vasu or Ali, and no one would have been able to identify either
man on a street. However, that didn’t stop anyone even remotely
associated with the underworld from claiming deep and abiding ties
with Vasu, Ali, or more ambitiously, both of them. Each had a
following that was legion and each had scores of urban legends
ascribed to him: Vasu’s razor was unerring in its accuracy, Ali was as
strong as a lion and could easily take on a gang of a hundred men, both
were over six feet tall, they were inseparable and had an unquenchable
thirst for women. The big rumour was that Jayaraj gave them each an
astronomical weekly allowance of eleven thousand rupees.

At the time, I would visit Jnana Bharathi (Bangalore University)

twice a week. Kalegowda Nagwara, a Kannada lecturer at the
university, was a relative of mine and I would take with me books that
we could discuss. Frequently, the well-known Dalit poet Siddalingiah,
the critic D.R. Nagraj and the present secretary of the Sahitya
Academy, Agrahara Krishnamurthy, who were then studying for their
Master’s degree in Kannada, would join us. Discussions were fairly
eclectic, ranging from elaborate arguments about the books I had
brought along to the city’s underworld. There were serious debates
about grassroots issues as well as an expression of deep-seated respect
for those who had brought in a significant amount of change in society
using violence. I was a natural raconteur and my stories, peppered with
imaginary incidents and embellished with urban legend, would
invariably be about the two dominant rowdies at the time: Razor Vasu
and Mohammaden Block Ali.

Naturally, as was the trend at the time, the Marxist revolutionary

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara figured prominently in our conversations; we
were deeply fascinated with his approach to change and society.
Curiously, the American gangster Patty Hearst was also someone we
held respect for, and indeed, some of us were so taken with her life
that a student with Leftist leanings even wrote a play about her and
staged it at Ravindra Kalakshetra near Town Hall.

It was a time of deep unrest, both personal and political, and we felt

an attack on crude and money-grabbing capitalists was long overdue.
It was a time for active rebellion and for action. It was at this time that
I, along with two friends, Ramesh and Sujay, plotted my first act of
violence.

It was a Sunday and the three of us were in a hostel run by the Jain

community. We were a few beers down and talking of Hearst,
bemoaning the lack of a leader of her stature. We then decided that we,
too, could form a gang like Hearst and launch an attack on ‘capitalist
slave-drivers’. At the time, it mattered little that both Ramesh and
Sujay came from very wealthy families and, in a sense, represented the
enemy we were plotting to attack. We decided who our target would
be—a businessman everyone called ‘Shetty’. He lived in a large
mansion opposite East West School, near Krishna Rao Park in south
Bangalore. Ramesh described the man: he owned three cars, was
miserly, uncaring and would do just about anything for money. To us,
Shetty embodied exploitation and oppression. We decided to launch an
attack on his house that same night.

When we set out, the city was absolutely still and the streets were

empty. We reached Shetty’s house at eleven o’clock and sat on a stone
bench near Krishna Rao Park, waiting for people in the house to retire
for the night. At half past eleven, when all the lights in the house had
been turned off, we decided to move in. The only source of
illumination was a lamppost on the road. Sujay, who was a marksman
of sorts, picked up a stone and took out that one remaining light. The
street was not in complete darkness. We walked up to the gate and,
making sure there were no dogs inside, jumped into the compound.
We made our way to the front door and bolted it. We then picked up
every pot we could find in the garden and threw it into the street
outside. We then jumped over the gate and stood at a distance of about
twenty metres from the house. A small stockpile of stones was quickly
accumulated and we launched the projectiles at the house. Each one

found its mark. Glass shattered so loudly in the still of the night that
we leapt back towards the park in fear. Soon, shouts of ‘thief, thief’
rent the air and the lights in the house came on. The balcony door
upstairs opened and a man in a dhoti and vest came out gingerly and
looked over the parapet. A woman, perhaps his wife, joined him and
soon there were about eight people on the balcony, all staring out in
fear. They conversed loudly in Telugu and after a few moments went
back inside. After about ten minutes, we decided to renew our attack.
This time, we weren’t as scared as we were earlier. After we were
done, we sauntered back to the park and crouched behind a bush.

Shetty came out, screaming expletives in Telugu. He swore and

swore and we were delighted. Then, Shetty’s son came out, peered at
the park for a moment and went back in. By then, we had decided that
we weren’t going to back down. We picked up three large stones and
launched one final offensive against Shetty and his house. The house
was quiet, but the lights were still on. We waited in the park.

Soon, a police vehicle came clattering through the night. Many

years later, when I would gain notoriety in the underworld, even a hint
of such a vehicle approaching would have me on the run, but not then.
Then, we had nothing to fear. We were revolutionaries. We had
attacked the house of the oppressor. Surely, the police would
commend us, we thought.

The Basavanagudi police station is situated inside Krishna Rao

Park, and in all likelihood the police vehicle had arrived from this
location. About five constables got out and went into Shetty’s house.
We remained crouched behind the bush. Soon, the policemen walked
towards the park with two torches held aloft. This was patently
ridiculous. There we were, three teenagers in a twenty-five-acre park
and all they could throw at us were five cops with two pathetic
torches? But still, we were scared, and after a hastily whispered, ‘Let’s
run’, bolted towards B.P. Wadia Road on the other side of the park.
The constables gave rigorous chase and one even threw his lathi at us.
But we were younger, faster and scared.

We quickly made our way to Gandhi Bazaar, a few hundred metres

from the park, and by the time we got there, were much calmer. We
walked down Govindayya Road and came upon a parked Fiat. Ramesh
said if we could get in, he would hotwire the car. We picked up three
large stones, and from a distance of about twenty feet, launched at the
front windshield with all the power we could muster. What we didn’t