Mumbai Mafia: Police vs the Underworld (2023) Movie Script
1
[SIREN WAILING]
[SHARMA, IN HINDI]
There has always been crime in Mumbai.
It's ever present.
In the 1990s,
the underworld was fighting
for control over Mumbai...
[IN HINDI] A couple came
to the police station.
They said, "Sir, we were
tied up in our home at night
and two gangsters held us at gunpoint,
emptied our house and left."
These two gangsters had many cases
filed against them by the police,
from murder to rape,
house robbery, everything.
They were contract killers.
[PHONE RINGING]
One day, out of the blue, we get a call.
These guys are at a house evicting people...
[SIREN WAILING]
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
[IN HINDI] As soon as we got there,
one of them fires at us.
[GUN FIRING]
The other one took out his weapon...
and attacked a constable.
[GUN FIRING]
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
I shot both of them, three bullets each.
[IN HINDI] That was my first encounter.
[SIREN WAILING]
gangsters in the business district.
[REPORTER 2] The Bombay police
have shot dead
more than 40 gangsters
in the last two months.
[REPORTER 3] Encounter policemen,
heroes and saviors.
- [SIREN WAILING]
- [CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING]
[IN HINDI] The press called me
"Fastest gun in the West."
[REPORTER 4] Pradeep Sharma.
104 encounters.
- No, sir!
- Stand up!
We have to clean them from our society.
[GUNS FIRING]
[REPORTER 4] Encounter specialists,
heroes with Bollywood films
centered around them.
[IN HINDI] People say
you are bigger superstars
than the film stars who play you.
- [REPORTER 3] Dirty Harrys of Mumbai...
- [RIBEIRO] Criminals in uniform.
[REPORTER 5] Mumbai Police's
Pradeep Sharma
charged with kidnapping
and killing in cold blood.
[IN HINDI] After killing 112 people,
this is the reward I get.
[BIRDS SQUAWKING]
[SHARMA] I wasn't from Mumbai.
When I looked around,
I found everything odd.
[HORNS HONKING]
Life in Mumbai is fast.
The biggest difficulty
for an outsider in Mumbai
is that you sweat a lot here.
There is humidity
and, of course, crime.
[CHUCKLES]
[HORNS BLARING]
When I first joined the police...
MAHARASHTRA POLICE
[IN HINDI] He'd say, "Live a good life.
Become a professor or a scientist."
But then,
I wouldn't have had
such an adventurous life.
I didn't know anyone in Mumbai.
I had no friends or relatives in Mumbai.
MAHIM POLICE THANE, MUMBAI
That's why I stayed
in the police station for 24 hours.
I lived in the police bachelors' quarter.
A police officer like me
has so much violence in his life.
It's a painful job.
But if you have accepted it,
then you have to do it.
- [TRAFFIC BUSTLING]
- [HORNS BLARING]
[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]
[GUNS FIRING]
always had gangsters
and, you know, the bad guys
because we are the organized crime
capital of the country.
For the criminal,
this city is absolutely perfect.
Nobody is inquiring.
Nobody wants to know
where you're coming from,
where you're going.
Nobody is fingering you in this city.
They let you be.
[SIREN WAILING]
Organized crime really exploded
in the '80s and especially in the '90s.
That's when the rules changed,
when common people
were fucking killed across the city.
This is an organized crime case.
It's a serious incident.
He's been shot. I heard it from his son.
[REPORTER 1] The state government
has been criticized
for not doing enough
to control hits by the underworld.
The gangsters were doing
anything they wanted.
They were getting away with it.
It was fear.
[GUN FIRES]
Real fear.
[SIRENS WAILING]
They had become so strong that
they were more powerful than the cops.
[RAVINDRA ANGRE, IN HINDI]
There were a lot of criminals.
Murders happened openly.
No one was safe.
We could not do anything,
we were powerless.
Even if someone committed murder
and went to jail,
they would get bail
and be out in three months.
I didn't like it, but what could I do?
A police officer
shooting someone with a revolver
was out of the question.
was getting out of control.
Police were running around
like headless chickens.
So, that's when I decided
I'm going to get them.
[HORNS HONKING]
When I started studying
the activities of the gangs,
my main focus was on Dawood Ibrahim.
He was a major don.
Dawood had a gang called D-Company.
We had very few sources of knowing
what Dawood is doing.
So we started cultivating informants.
[PHONE RINGING]
One of my informants rang us up
and said two of Dawood's gangsters
were holding a businessman hostage,
and they were armed.
We came and apprehended them,
and then we started interrogation.
In interrogation, they gave us
a tremendous amount of information
about the activities of Dawood's gang.
This organization was operating
on a massive scale.
[HORNS BLARING]
[SHYAM KISHORE]
D-Company is like a huge conglomerate.
I would say, at any given time,
D-Company would add on its payroll
more than 25,000 people.
It's a big industry.
It's got its hands in almost every pie,
from smuggling gold,
silver, electronics, drugs,
bootlegging, gambling.
Dawood was very powerful.
He was like a king,
and I wanted to make it big in Bombay.
That was why I joined hands
with the company.
Dawood would call himself a businessman.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
But he got to the top mainly because
he eliminated all opposition to him.
He would order a killing.
He would want it done
with ten, 20 bullets being shot there,
and then people would get scared of him.
That fear factor
is what he used to thrive on.
Power flows from the nozzle of a gun,
you can say.
[TEJPAL] Their big thing was extortion.
Every week, the D-Company would take money
from shopkeepers in the area.
Everybody had to pay weekly rental
so that business happens smoothly
and nobody comes and busts up your shop.
Anybody who's making money,
whether you're a doctor
or a film star or a builder,
you had to pay money to them
in order to survive and to stay alive.
They were the unofficial mafia
and you had to pay.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
You didn't, next week, boom.
You're off, killed.
Dawood and his men were ruthless.
They were extremely dangerous.
So much of drug smuggling in India
was the D-Company.
Gold smuggling and prostitution,
organized racket,
cricket match corruption, even Bollywood.
In the '90s, it was estimated
500 crores from the underworld
was going into movies being produced.
I mean, this is insane and true.
D-Company not only had their fingers
in various pies,
they owned the fucking pie shop.
[HORNS BLARING]
[SAYED, IN HINDI] Now there is
all this ruckus about Dawood.
I have known him since 1974
when he committed his first robbery.
I used to meet him daily.
I was close friends
with his younger brother, Anees.
They weren't born
with a silver spoon in their mouth.
They came from struggle.
In the beginning, they didn't have cars,
they traveled in taxis.
One day, he gets a tip
about a rival at National Bar.
He had come there to drink beer.
They chopped off his fingers and nerves.
Dawood's name in the area was "Terror."
He was known as "Terror."
[HORNS BLARING]
If a person is murdered in Bombay,
people look at the body and walk away.
Because if they go closer,
they'll be trapped.
Dawood's gangsters terrorized people.
People would not come to the police,
and it was going on unchecked.
I decided that
I have got to get these fellows,
come what may.
At that time, I had about
32 police stations with me.
I picked out officers
based on their reputation.
I wanted officers who were physically fit,
who I felt had the guts enough
to fight fire with fire.
If you shoot a criminal,
you're laying yourself open
to criminal charges.
You are laying yourself open
to retaliation by the gang members.
So no one wanted to take the risk.
But I felt that going after
Dawood's gangsters
would prove that the police
are capable of taking action
and instilled a kind of fear
in the underworld.
One of the gangsters that
I was looking for was Dilip Buwa.
He was by far the most fearless
of Dawood's gang members.
In Mumbai earlier,
Dilip Buwa shot and killed a policeman.
[GUN FIRING]
And he had literally
kicked that dead body aside.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
So we started searching.
And one of my informants came forward
and he was very secretive.
He'd talk only to me.
There used to be the Sea Rock Hotel
at that time.
We parked in the carpark and he quietly
came and sat on the backseat.
He informed me that Dilip Buwa
had ganged up with Maya Dolas,
a gangster who had escaped
from police custody
and they started extortion
on a massive scale.
Maya Dolas and Dilip Buwa,
who are notorious gangsters,
who, between them, must have committed
more than 40 to 45 murders.
My informant said,
"I know where these fellows are."
"At present, they are
eating and drinking in Lokhandwala,
and they were armed."
"Come quickly, because the moment
they finish, they'll leave."
I required 200 policemen
to cordon off the area.
We received information
that some of the noted killers
from Dawood Ibrahim's gang,
Dilip Buwa and Maya Dolas
and several of his henchmen,
they're all armed with AK-47s.
And they were hiding in one Rajwani's flat
in this particular building.
[NEWS JINGLE PLAYS]
[REPORTER] November 16th,
Khan and his men carried out
the biggest operation
in the history of the Bombay Police.
Newstrack was there on the spot
and covered the entire operation
bullet by bullet.
Here is Minty Tejpal's exclusive
first-hand report
of the Saturday afternoon shootout.
Lokhandwala, Bombay. This is Minty Tejpal
reporting for Newstrack.
I was working with Newstrack.
My beat was political
and terror and threat.
So all my stories were shootout
and blood and all that.
At this point,
I came to Bombay to do a soft story.
And I was doing a feature on Pooja Bedi.
And just around lunchtime,
I noticed a buzz around the crew.
You get that feeling
when there's something happening,
and then parallelly I had been hearing
too much siren noise
and what the fuck?
[SIRENS WAILING]
And then I hear over the phone,
the unmistakable burst of a AK-47,
which I know.
I've heard it in Punjab.
I fired it with the army.
[MACHINE GUN FIRING]
Then I took a call right there and then,
telling Pooja, "I'm going to pack up
and check out what this story is."
You can't have an AK-47
being fired in Bombay. A pistol, fine.
But AK-47 burst. I heard a burst
over the phone. [MIMICKING RAPID GUNFIRE]
Like, "This is something."
A taxi guy agreed to 500 rupees
to drive me from Juhu to Lokhandwala.
I'm saying... [IN HINDI] "Come on, go!"
'cause something's up.
We take a left
and we're suddenly at this complex.
I remember when we moved in,
cops ran at us and told us,
"Get out. No press. It's dangerous."
[OFFICER SPEAKING IN MARATHI]
[MAN SPEAKING IN HINDI]
where there are so many people around,
the worst thing that can happen
is an innocent civilian is killed.
The gangsters fired AK-47s randomly,
without any control.
[IN MARATHI] Go over this side.
Over this side or your life is in danger.
The cops wouldn't let us go.
Don't get in on this side.
So I circled around completely like that
and got in here, right behind them.
Suddenly, I'm under the building,
and I'm rolling.
We're in the middle of the shootout.
[IN HINDI] Quick! Get the vehicle!
"You're here, you shouldn't be here."
"Don't move from here,
or you might get shot."
As simple as that.
[MACHINE GUNS FIRING]
[KHAN] Maya Dolas was a cocky fellow,
a very arrogant fellow.
In fact, he was taunting the police that,
"Come and arrest us."
"Within one hour,
we'll get bail and be out."
So I said, "All right.
Now, no holds barred. Let's get them."
[GUNS FIRING]
But we were firing from two sides.
[GUNFIRE CONTINUES]
This is in Lokhandwala, you know,
in a residential complex.
Gangsters with AK-47s
in a shootout with cops in broad daylight.
It's crazy.
[GUNFIRE CONTINUES]
How many people are inside?
Two, three, four, five...
Fuck! Nobody knew.
Even the cops were guessing.
[GUNFIRE CONTINUES]
[YOUNG TEJPAL]
Finally at 5:15 in the evening,
there was a last burst of gunfire.
[GUNFIRE CONTINUES]
As we went closer to the building,
we saw one mangled body
lying on the ground.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
In a four-hour long operation,
with over 500 policemen,
1,400 rounds have been fired.
[TEJPAL] There were seven gangsters
who were dead,
Maya Dolas, Dilip Buwa and five more.
No human being
likes to kill another human being.
It goes against everything that
you have been taught from childhood.
Respect for human life. But then
the persons I shot,
they had not only shot innocent people,
but they shot policemen.
[INSPECTOR QAVI]
One group was headed by me,
which entered from the door.
I was carrying a gun.
It was already cocked.
I said, "Don't move
and surrender yourself."
By the time the warning finishes,
Dilip Buwa,
he immediately got up and shot at me.
[KHAN] If I come across a criminal
and the criminal has got a gun,
if he doesn't put down the gun,
I'm going to shoot him.
This is actually a must for a policeman,
if he wants to live himself.
[IN HINDI] I am here now in Lokhandwala
exactly where the shootout took place.
a tremendous amount of publicity.
Police Chief A. A. Khan.
[SPEAKING HINDI]
something like that had been seen on TV.
POLICE
What that shootout did
was show people, the citizens,
that the cops could fight back.
It certainly boosted the cops' profile.
Everybody likes to see
gangsters getting killed.
[KHAN] This kind of situation
became known as an "encounter."
[ANGRE, IN HINDI] After Lokhandwala,
a positive message
was sent from us to the public.
That the police had done well.
This is how it should be.
You should kill criminals like this.
It felt good.
The police image improved.
I was determined to do something,
to go out and do some good work,
to deliver justice to people.
[SIREN WAILING]
We went after
all the gangsters vigorously.
The gun must be used,
because it's the moral responsibility
of a police officer.
The first time I held a revolver,
my palms were sweating.
But I was too excited.
[SHARMA] I was transferred
to the Crime Branch in '92.
It was in the Crime Branch
that my journey really began.
I had an informant
in every slum in Mumbai.
They see a shootout,
then call me immediately,
"Sir, there's a shootout."
We call this "instant information."
Our intention is to arrest them.
But if someone tries to kill you,
you wouldn't greet them
with a bouquet, right?
The government has given us a gun.
It's not just to hang around our waist.
It's to use should the need arise.
I have been part
of several such operations.
[TRAIN HORN BLARING]
crime journalist in those days.
Me and my other reporter friends like me
supported the cops
who had started doing encounters.
I felt that the gangsters
had no fear of law.
The only language they understood
was bullet for a bullet.
When I went to meet Pradeep Sharma,
he was very wary of me.
He was not willing to talk to me.
[IN HINDI] I explained to him that
I don't have any agenda.
I'm not going to do anything against him.
I'm just looking
for my newspaper's page-one.
Then he started to talk to me.
Pradeep Sharma
had developed an insensitivity.
For him, there was no wrong.
it was a different experience.
[ZAIDI, IN HINDI]
Pradeep Sharma's first encounter,
where he shot those bullets
out of compulsion,
because two people were torturing a woman
and forcibly throwing her out of her home.
He was not very sure
if what he did was right or not.
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
[SHARMA] My first encounter,
I went in haste.
I could have had a well-planned operation.
I could have taken more force along.
I opened fire to save myself.
When their family members came,
I felt very sad.
I was like, "What have I done?"
But thinking of it as an accident,
I was able to accept it.
[IN HINDI] I come from
a very moderate family.
We have been taught that
only God has the right to a human's life,
and the same with death.
Humans have no control over any of this.
These were my values I grew up with.
No police officer
enjoys killing a criminal.
This is the job you selected.
Do your duty.
very conflicted when I meet gangsters.
Many are remorseless.
Many think of killing as a sport.
But there are many others
who go drunk when they have to kill
because they cannot bear
the stench of blood, the sight of blood.
And, eventually, there is remorse.
There is regret.
But the underworld
has a very meticulous way
of recruiting foot soldiers.
It's like brainwashing.
They have these scouts
who are there on every street corner.
They target boys
who come from poor families
but aspire to a good life.
There are school dropouts
and college dropouts.
These people are low in self-confidence.
So what the scout will do is he will give
a small job to the potential recruit.
And he will praise the recruit
so that it builds self-confidence.
He feels appreciated.
In the underworld, they call each other
"bhai," meaning "brother."
It creates a sense of camaraderie.
It creates a sense of belonging.
Which is also missing
from these people's life.
It's done so brilliantly, the recruitment.
There's a reason
it's called "organized crime."
- [SIRENS WAILING]
- [TRAFFIC BUSTLING]
[SAYED, IN HINDI] Everyone considered
joining D-Company.
Everyone, everyone, everyone.
But the name "gangster"
was something we never understood.
Everyone was just
trying to make life work.
When police started
killing Dawood's supporters,
the difference between
justice and injustice,
it was all mixed up.
After that, people started
thinking there'd be a reaction.
He was not the sort of person
to just let something be.
But then Dawood left for Dubai.
was better from Dubai.
His main business was gold.
He used to buy it in tons.
And he had a very good network
of smuggling gold from Dubai to India.
There used to be a profit margin of 25%.
From time to time, I would see him.
Meeting him was a big deal.
Like, any Tom, Dick and Harry
wouldn't have access to him.
He didn't care
about encounter cops initially
because he was safe.
His most trusted lieutenants were safe.
It was only the foot soldiers
who were being killed.
He had to pay them money every month.
And if they were killed,
probably it saved him his money.
But after the riots of '92
and the police reaction,
then his attitude changed.
[PEOPLE CLAMORING]
[REPORTER] The violence swept India
throughout the day.
Stonings, bus burnings, and attacks
on police stations all across the country.
[GUN FIRES]
[TEJPAL] I covered the riots.
They were scary. They were frightening.
And you saw
what humanity is really capable of.
We humans have
so much evil and poison in us,
it's unbelievable.
There are certain incidents
that poison comes out en masse.
[MOB CLAMORING]
It started in
the town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh,
where a Muslim mosque
was razed to the ground.
After that, Hindus and Muslims
all over the country started fighting.
It was violent.
It was very bloody and very violent.
There were neighbors
turning against neighbors.
You suspected everybody.
Can the police be trusted?
[INDISTINCT SHOUTING]
[EXPLOSION BOOMS]
The '92-'93 riots, it was just chaos.
Bombay was the worst hit.
Around 900 people died.
Many of these deaths
were blamed on the police.
They were accused of being heavy-handed,
of usings fire for fire
against regular citizens.
[KHAN] These kind of activities
by the police,
and mind you,
there were just a handful of them,
uh, again, uh, widened the gap
between the police and the public.
The public started
being suspicious of the police.
[MAN, IN HINDI] You just have to be out
on the street and they'll shoot at you.
We are leaving Bombay
in fear of the police.
The reason for our fear is the police.
[ANGRE] Police may have been
a little strict.
But if action wasn't taken,
then the riots would have spread.
We arrested a lot of people,
detained a lot of people.
There was lathi-charge at a lot of places.
People were terrified of the police.
If they saw the police, they would run.
[WHISTLE BLOWS]
the underworld had stayed out.
But Dawood was a Muslim.
And people were saying,
"You are such a big bhai
staying in Dubai."
People used to call him up and say,
"Your community people, your friends,
they are being bumped off here
and you can do nothing about it?"
"You should have some revenge."
"Why don't you strike back?"
I believe D-Company
supplied weapons to some rioters.
The result took the entire city by storm.
[ANGRE, IN HINDI]
The riots went out of control.
They kept spreading.
The general public
have no interest in rioting.
Anti-national elements,
those people cause riots.
[FEMALE INTERVIEWER]
Do you think D-Company
and the gangsters
had a role in these riots?
100%. Dawood enflamed the riots.
He wanted to create chaos.
During the communal riots,
we found a number of
Dawood's criminals transporting arms.
But Dawood was multi-headed hydra.
You cut off one head,
the others were always there.
We wanted to crack down on a bigger scale.
[HORNS HONKING]
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] In Andheri,
there is an international airport.
The illegal activities there
were being supervised by Shrikant Desai.
We used to call him Shrikant Mama.
He was one of the top people
in the company.
He was not into
the actual killing of someone.
Shrikant used to control
the smuggling routes from the airport.
Air cargo, basically.
And they made huge money out of that.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] Shrikant Mama,
he was very strong and powerful.
He was one of the top ten names
in Mumbai in the '90s.
[IN HINDI] I was with my friend
Vijay Salaskar.
We were at the police station.
[PHONE RINGING]
An informant phoned us.
"Shrikant comes to this location."
My team and I headed there to arrest him.
[SIREN WAILING]
As soon as he realized
that the police had cornered him,
he opened fire.
[GUNFIRE CONTINUES]
We both neutralized him.
As soon as news of his death spread,
a pin-drop silence fell.
Nobody imagined that this man could die.
Shrikant, after his death,
D-Company's air cargo section
collapsed, literally.
Dawood was affected,
and he was full of anger
for this and for the Muslims
killed in the riots.
He wanted to send out a message,
but the scale and the magnitude of it
catapulted him to a different league.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[REPORTER] A few minutes
before trading was to end
at the Bombay Stock Exchange...
[EXPLOSION]
- [PEOPLE CLAMORING]
- [SIRENS BLARING]
[REPORTER 1] The bombs devastated
Bombay's Stock Exchange.
[REPORTER 2] The explosive device
placed in a car
in the basement parking area
claimed at least 70 lives.
[ANGRE] At that time,
I was sitting in Mumbai Crime Branch.
[IN HINDI] Shortly after, information
came through about other areas.
[EXPLOSION BOOMING]
A car bomb went off at a bus stop
opposite Century Bazaar shopping center.
[REPORTER 4] Other targets
included banks and hotels.
[REPORTER 5] In total,
12 bombs were detonated around the city.
They were mainly placed in cars.
[REPORTER 6] The deadliest
terror attack India has ever seen.
[SIRENS WAILING]
[IN HINDI] The police were now tense.
What on earth is happening?
The city was shaken by 12 bomb blasts.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] The blasts in '93,
it was a heinous crime, a serious crime.
city center hospital is packed.
The scene here, one of utter chaos.
[REPORTER 8] The number killed
is currently put at over 250.
But it's feared that
this death toll could rise even higher.
[TEJPAL] It was scary.
I mean, for us,
I think it was a 9/11 equivalent.
Discovery of these grenades was the first
major breakthrough for the police.
[REPORTER 9]
The main suspects, known gangsters,
have fled to Dubai
leaving a trail of evidence.
[TEJPAL] Dawood Ibrahim
was accused of the bomb blasts.
Incidents that started
on December 6th in Ayodhya
exploded into this
just incredible act of terrorism.
I think the attack was against the very
existence and soul of this country.
[REPORTER 10] The Prime Minister, Mr. Rao,
said the target
had been India's economic heart.
[KISHORE] Initially, it was disbelief.
But then later, as we saw
the evidence coming up, it was horrific.
I had nothing to do with the bomb blasts.
Not many secrets
are kept within the D-Company,
but this was one of the best-kept secrets.
[REPORTER 11] The arrests made
threw the spotlight
on Bombay's underworld mafia.
[ANGRE, IN HINDI] Until then,
no one ever thought a bombing in Mumbai
could be done by gangs or terrorists.
The concept was entirely new in India.
[MAN] They would like
instability and disorder to prevail
so that they can carry on
their nefarious activities.
[SIRENS WAILING]
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] Dawood's syndicate,
these people are terror.
Love of the nation means nothing to them.
the world's most powerful people is out.
Sharing space with the world's most
influential leaders is the underworld don
and India's most wanted criminal,
Dawood Ibrahim,
described as the boss of
the Mumbai organized crime syndicate,
the D-Company.
[SAYED, IN HINDI] After '93 happened,
he was labeled as a terrorist.
From terror to terrorist.
No one has their future
written on their forehead.
He never started with the plan that,
"In '93, I'll do a bombing."
He didn't think like that,
but the situation kept building.
After the '93 blasts,
our enquiries had started.
From the investigations, we found out
that the bomb blast was planned in Dubai.
[IMPERCEPTIBLE]
Dawood was fully involved
in consignments landing.
Material for the bomb blasts were landed.
RDX explosives were landed.
The government was furious.
Police were furious.
This was like war against the state.
Our superiors were under pressure
to get a handle on this.
[ZAIDI] Just think that
after the 1993 blast,
a special squad
of the Crime Branch was formed.
It included these
encounter specialist officers...
carte blanche, an unlimited power.
Police Commissioner R.D. Tyagi
said, "I want encounters."
[ANGRE, IN HINDI]
The police had to create terror
that is with the consent of the superiors.
"Why have we given you a revolver?"
"We want strict action."
We all knew what they meant.
When certain officers protested
against eliminating people in encounters,
R.D. Tyagi was very angry.
He said, "I know
as a commissioner how I can do this."
"You don't teach your father how to fuck."
The Mumbai bomb blast
changed everything, you know.
[SIRENS WAILING]
The public outcry was so deafening.
It was open season.
The killing fields are open.
Boom. Go for it.
[REPORTER 1] The Mumbai police
have begun an intensive search.
[REPORTER 2] Police are now
out to stop the gang activity
any way they can.
It was fear psychology.
- No, sir!
- Stand up!
[IN HINDI] If they can scare the public,
then we can scare them too.
aren't shy about their tactics.
Shoot first, ask questions later.
[IN HINDI] Not a week would pass
without an encounter.
The Bombay police have shot dead
more than 40 alleged gangsters
in the last two months alone.
The encounter squad
had a sort of official sanction.
Everybody wanted Dawood's blood,
and they were more motivated than ever
to go after his gangsters.
I was like,
"Something is finally happening."
[ANGRE, IN HINDI] We would never
share information with each other
because there was professional rivalry.
We asked them to surrender.
But instead of surrendering themselves,
they started firing on the police.
[SALASKAR] When somebody's
firing towards you,
you don't have time to consider whether
you're firing towards his hand or leg.
We have been taught
that the firing should be effective.
[REPORTER 4] Police gunned down
three gangsters here
in Bombay's central business district.
[IN HINDI] They could arrest anyone,
kill anyone in an encounter.
[MEN SPEAKING IN HINDI]
[REPORTER 5]
Mumbai's encounter specialists,
sharpshooters in police uniform.
[IN HINDI] So the media's reaction
was good, very positive.
16 hardcore criminals.
[IN HINDI] I carried out
four encounters in one day.
squads were created
and they were given unfettered powers.
I had actually objected
to the senior officers.
I said that we couldn't shoot
a criminal on our own whim and fancy.
The aim of every policeman
is initially to arrest the person
and bring him to justice.
And these kind of wanton killings
left a bad taste in the mouth.
I said, "I don't want to continue."
And I decided
to take voluntary retirement.
[IN HINDI] I still feel like
he shouldn't have resigned.
Something must have bothered him
and he resigned.
A great officer.
He had some disagreements
with our superiors, so he had to leave.
When I was posted in Thane,
in two and a half years,
I did 22-23 encounters.
The press, TV, human rights lot, courts,
politicians, and bureaucrats...
- [INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- [HORNS HONKING]
[PERRY] I hadn't even been
in India for a few months
when I began reading about this.
And that phrase "encounter cops,"
it took me ages to work that out.
"What is an encounter cop?
They're having a lot of meetings?"
I remember the papers
kept score of their tallies.
[REPORTER 1]
Ravindra Angre, 52 encounters.
Vijay Salaskar, 48 encounters.
"This guy's got 42. This guy's got 58."
[REPORTER 2] Eighty-five encounters.
Eighty-three encounters.
[PERRY] What was the odd thing about it
was the gangsters
would always be armed with an AK-47,
and the cops would always have a pistol.
But somehow, the cops were never hurt.
You know, how does one guy
shoot 87 people without getting a scratch?
This sounded quite curious to me.
The other intriguing part
was how it was portrayed.
They had laudatory coverage in the papers.
There's something way off here.
[GUN FIRING]
[REPORTER 3] Encounter specialists,
who have come to be
near mythological heroes
with Bollywood films centered around them.
[IN HINDI] How many guys
have you personally killed till date?
Two, five, ten?
I have bumped off more than 50 already.
become kind of rock stars.
They were celebrities.
They were stopped in the street
and they hung out with celebrities.
[IN HINDI] It felt good, obviously,
being in the newspaper,
doing TV interviews.
The press called me
"Fastest gun in the West."
The talk of us acting like heroes,
the media started this.
How is this our fault?
Pradeep Sharma, I would say
back in '96-'97, was down to earth.
Pradeep Sharma, Bombay Police?
Yeah, I am.
[ZAIDI] But then there came ego.
[IN HINDI] People say
you are bigger superstars
than the film stars who play you.
Yes, sometimes people say that.
they want to be the man of the hour.
[IN HINDI] As the police,
we go to arrest them.
But, obviously,
they know they face stringent laws.
If they're arrested,
they won't get out for eight to ten years.
That's why,
to scare the police or to save themselves,
they fire at us. And then we retaliate.
was hungry for going after criminals
and killing them in encounters.
[IN HINDI] When they did encounters,
I was going on the spot
to do stories on them.
get close to them and speak to them.
If you become a good listener,
if you tap that thing in them,
just because you have
given them time to talk...
[IN HINDI] ...you will see
how they share stories with you,
they will vent out to you
and share hidden secrets with you...
your page-one story.
They were in competition with each other,
trying to score
the biggest number of hits.
"I've killed 80." "I've killed 90."
"I have killed 100."
It's going to go to their head.
It looked like that was
the only accomplishment
that they were really proud of.
At last count, Pradeep, you had 92...
A score of 92, and you 78, isn't it?
- Or something like that.
- Yeah.
So it's like a Sachin Tendulkar-Sehwag
or Yuvraj-Kaif partnership.
Who chases after whom?
You are chasing after him?
- No, we are working together.
- Working together?
Merely going around killing criminals
for the sake of building up a record,
or saying, "Yes, I have accounted
for so many encounter deaths,"
that is... I would call it reprehensible.
[CHANGOIWALA] During the late '90s,
Mumbai looked like a war zone.
But the encounter squad was not pulled up.
Somehow everybody saw it as legitimate.
I think it is justified completely.
[MAN 1] Extraordinary situations
call for extraordinary measures.
[MAN 2] This is the thing
that's happening.
But then gradually, human rights activists
started questioning the culture.
I am questioning
the police about this quick disposal.
I'd rather see him
found guilty in a court of law.
[CHANGOIWALA] By 2003, encounters
had killed about 1,200 gangsters.
When you say that the '93 blast
was the biggest carnage Mumbai has seen,
1,200 gangsters is five times
the casualties we had in the '93 blast.
Of course, these were criminals
and I do not justify their actions,
but these were men who had families,
these were men who had wives,
who had children, who had mothers,
who had fathers,
who probably had a chance at reformation.
Then the term "fake encounter"
entered the public discourse.
Their encounters could have been staged.
[KHAN] There was a series of anecdotes
that officers picked up
criminals from their homes,
and they took them elsewhere,
interrogated them and shot them.
[REPORTER, IN HINDI] On Mumbai Police's
number one most wanted list,
Sada Mama Pawle,
was finally caught by the police.
Police retaliated
and shot two dead on the spot.
This is all a media creation.
The public know
who is fake and who is genuine.
[THUNDER RUMBLES]
[ANGRE] I've had 54 encounters.
I don't have any allegations against me
for a single encounter.
All of mine were clean encounters.
Why blame the police then?
We did the work.
became much more dangerous.
Stories were around
that some of my friends
got picked up from somewhere,
and then they were shot.
People were saying, "You are targeted."
"You are a name."
"So you'll also be a victim
of some encounter, a managed encounter."
[FEMALE INTERVIEWER] Were you shocked by
the number of people being encountered?
Yes...
I was shocked.
But people told me, yes,
now it's a more pro-active force.
I did fear Pradeep Sharma.
I had some credible intelligence
he was trying to gun for me.
He had a lot of informers
from the underworld.
People who probably,
to avoid being encountered themselves,
they would say, "Please don't kill us,
I will give you information."
So I made up my mind
that I want to step out of this.
It's not worth what I'm risking.
I felt probably it'll be much safer for me
to be out of the city.
So, November of 2003,
early morning around five o'clock,
I drove to Goa.
I was terrified.
Am I being followed?
Are my phones being tapped?
I do not know.
Probably at the next check post,
someone might be waiting for me
to bump me off.
[SAYED, IN HINDI]
Many were killed in encounters.
And do you know what they did?
They left all their illegal activities
and surrendered themselves to the police
out of fear of encounters.
I always use it against criminals.
[IN HINDI] Slowly the fear spread.
[IN HINDI] What changed for Dawood?
The roads started to close for him.
Everyone knew speaking to a terrorist
would lead to bad fortune for themselves.
No one would talk to him.
of D-Company, they fled.
Dawood went into hiding totally.
It was all about securing your own life.
I took a fake name.
I had absolutely no contact with anybody.
My family members, my brother, my father...
Everyone.
I was quite lonely.
I would stay close to ten years incognito.
Trying to evade
being made a target of some encounter.
[REPORTER] A shootout happened
near the Deonar Crematorium
in North-East Mumbai early this morning.
Nearly 60 alleged gangsters
have been killed in similar encounters
with the Mumbai Police
in the last eight months.
[PERRY] The effect on organized crime
in Bombay was massive.
There have been, you know,
two shootings a week on the streets
by the gangsters.
But by the early 2000s,
it had fallen to sort of two a month.
So encounter cops had a massive impact.
And I just remember thinking,
"I need to meet one of these guys."
I didn't have
a extensive contacts list at that stage.
But I began asking around,
and there was
one particular journalist in Bombay
called Hussain Zaidi,
who was a crime reporter,
who knew everybody.
You know, he had all these guys
on speed dial.
He was very fascinated
with these encounter cops.
He says, "We have not seen
these kind of cops
except in movies like Dirty Harry."
[IN HINDI] He asked me to introduce him
to a guy who would open up
or speak to us in an interview.
[PERRY] He was India's leading
encounter cop.
In fact, he was coming up
to make his century.
It's one of those things
where you're going into an interview
and you want to try
and count your questions
and be quite careful,
tread quite carefully,
and let someone almost lead you to a place
rather than sort of confront them, um...
and I didn't have to do any of that.
It was extraordinary.
I'm interviewing Pradeep,
and in the room next door,
there were a couple of guys chained up,
who were being beaten senseless.
You know, they may kill these two guys.
I just kept my mouth shut
and just observed this.
No one wrote
"These cops are killing people,
executing people on the streets."
No one wrote that.
So, I think I was half expecting to
find out that there was some explanation.
But it was definitely only
when I got there that I realized,
"Right, they are just
whacking these guys... [LAUGHS]
...and making no bones about it."
And telling me that actually.
[IN HINDI]
Hussain Zaidi brought Alex Perry.
He said, "They want to interview you
for a magazine."
I said, "Okay."
I spoke to him the same way
I'm talking to you.
I didn't know how important
TIME Magazine was.
Naturally, they are filth.
We have to clean them from our society.
We met a few times, and he was open.
He was candid.
[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
Everybody knows this is going on.
Everybody agrees with it.
So who's going to complain?
And I used to look at him sometimes
and wonder whether,
"Do you realize that
there is a day of reckoning?"
You know, he was obviously
enjoying the character that he was.
He thought he was being
a service to his community.
And I think these guys all thought
that they had impunity.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] In 2003, I never knew
the value of TIME Magazine.
I had never read it in my entire life.
his victims look at me like God."
"Criminals are filth and I'm the cleaner."
It feels like a kind of Icarus arc, right?
You know, they flew too high.
There was bound to be
some kind of blowback.
[REPORTER 1] Sharma
is the first encounter specialist
to have been removed from active duty.
[REPORTER 2] Sharma,
the first senior encounter man,
to be removed.
[REPORTER 3] He was arrested
last night along with five others
for the fake encounter of an alleged
gangster in Mumbai's Andheri area.
[IN HINDI] I wish
I had never given that interview.
[ANGRE] Suddenly, people
started questioning what was going on.
Everyone was happy
when the work was getting done.
Why question everything after?
[SHARMA] Naturally, I felt bad.
So, the media changed its tune.
I took on the enemies of society.
After doing all that,
they are locking me up.
[REPORTER 1] Mr. Pradeep!
Sidelined by the same force
that had once rewarded him
for his service.
Many policemen see this
as the end of an era.
[CHANGOIWALA] When the TIME article
came out, things went downhill,
not just for Pradeep Sharma,
but for other cops.
Everybody started scrutinizing
the actions of the encounter specialists.
[RIBEIRO] I think they're criminals
in uniform.
- You do think that.
- Criminals in uniform.
Because anybody who is being
given so much freedom
to kill people, who is safe?
Cases that have piled up against Mumbai's
high-profile encounter specialist...
[CHANGOIWALA] There were
many allegations of corruption.
[REPORTER] Builder, Ganesh Wagh,
alleged that his life was under threat
from another encounter specialist,
Ravindra Angre.
[IN HINDI] An extortion case
was filed against me.
I was arrested
and put in jail for some years.
Everyone in Thane knew
that the allegations were false.
Some people were waiting to find anything
against me so that they could trap me.
If a junior gets fame,
will the superior feel good about it?
So there was a little bit
of jealousy everywhere.
the only one to fall from grace.
[REPORTER 2] Sachin Vaze arrested
for the custodial death of Khwaja Yunus.
[REPORTER 1] Praful Bhosle
currently under suspicion.
[IN HINDI] Editors used to visit.
Our names would be printed in editorials.
We were in the front page of news.
of the Mumbai Police.
They were cops
who shot gangsters in encounters
and struck fear
in the heart of the underworld.
[INTERVIEWER, IN HINDI]
After all you've done,
all the terrorists and underworld people
that you have killed,
which brought peace to Mumbai,
is it painful to find yourself
under an investigation like this?
Definitely, I'm hurt. For sure.
[INTERVIEWER] How does it feel?
I mean, we want to know the feeling.
After killing 112 people,
this is the reward I get.
I personally think that killing,
causing death of others is detestable.
As policemen,
I think we should desist from doing that.
These are totally avoidable
inhuman practices.
So it was just a matter of time
that there was resistance
towards police doing this.
By this time, the top leaders
from the D-Company
were all sitting outside India.
I had been picked up for deputation
to the Ministry of External Affairs.
I was handling investigations abroad
and extraditions.
Abu Salem was a big shot member
of the Dawood gang.
He was involved in extortion.
Among the Bollywood industry,
there were around 50 odd cases
throughout the country against him.
Including his involvement
in the murder of Gulshan Kumar.
[MAN 1] Gulshan Kumar
was a multimillionaire.
[MAN 2] To Indians,
Gulshan Kumar was almost a legend.
[MAN 3] With the fortune
he made on film music,
he built this temple near his home...
[MAN 4] Gulshan Kumar
was accosted by gunmen
and shot at from point-blank range
while coming out of a temple.
[RUPIN] Abu Salem was wanted
for the Gulshan Kumar murder case,
and he was wanted
for the Bombay bomb blasts.
[REPORTER 1] Abu Salem
is a high-profile convict...
[REPORTER 2] One of the masterminds
of the 1993 Bombay blasts.
[RUPIN] That was when I decided,
this is one guy that I will go after
and try to get him if possible.
There used to be various news
that he is in the US, Canada,
or in the Gulf countries,
traveling under fake IDs.
The criminals would change
their numbers, their location.
They outwitted the system.
But information technology
has broken barriers.
Interpol headquarters
forwarded to us emails.
The email said that he will go to Norway
and then onwards to Canada.
We tracked the origins of that email.
By the evening, we had come to know
that this email originated from Portugal.
[REPORTER, IN HINDI] In the area
of Martim Moniz is this street,
Rua Da Palma,
where a lot of Indian people live.
The pink building which you see right now
is Rua Da Palma 284.
On the 18th, Abu Salem
was coming down from this building
and right in front near the gate
is where the police were waiting for him.
their constitution lays down
that nobody will be extradited
if the death penalty can be imposed.
The next day, I got a call
from the legal advisor in CBI.
He said, "What do we do?"
"How can we say that
death penalty cannot be imposed?"
"And it is such a serious offense
of terrorism or murders and all."
I said, "Sir, we have to decide."
"The bottom line is whether
we want him back or not."
"If we have to get him back,
there is no option for us
but to give this assurance."
Finally, he did agree.
[REPORTER 1] Gangster Abu Salem
accused in the 1993 bomb blasts
is to be brought to India to face trial.
[REPORTER 2] He is likely to
escape the death penalty
as his extradition from Portugal
was on the grounds
that he would not be given
capital punishment.
[RUPIN] Getting an internationally
recognized terrorist extradited,
it was the feeling of elation
for all of us.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[REPORTER 3] Stay with me, Divyesh.
Abu Salem, one of the main conspirators
of the 1993 Bombay blast...
[WHISTLE BLOWING]
...given life sentence.
Abu Salem has been found guilty
under charges of TADA,
conspiracy, murder, arms act,
and various other charges.
[RUPIN] There is pressure
on the police to give punishment,
but punishment
is the job of the judiciary.
- [MAN 1] Abu bhai!
- [MAN 2] Abu bhai!
[RUPIN] Abu Salem going to prison,
I think it was a message
that societies do evolve.
You don't have to encounter or kill.
There is another way.
[CHANGOIWALA] The death penalty
had been handed out
to hundreds of gangsters
on the streets of Bombay
by encounter specialists.
But there could have been a better way
for the dead and for these cops.
[REPORTER 1] You wanted to say something?
[MAN] Who is going to decide
if this man is a gangster or not?
You have no right to eliminate him.
You are not supposed to kill that person.
Try him, get him prosecuted,
get him convicted.
[APPLAUSE]
[REPORTER 2] Pradeep Sharma
was arrested for the fake encounter
of an alleged gangster in 2006.
Lakhan Bhaiya was killed
by the police in an encounter...
[REPORTER 3] Mumbai Police's
controversial encounter specialist,
Pradeep Sharma, is charged with kidnapping
and killing in cold blood.
[REPORTER 4] Sharma was a poster boy
of the Mumbai Police.
He was involved in 107 encounters
in his 14 years of service.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] A jail is a jail.
You won't have the freedom
as you did outside.
I'm surrounded by all those
that I had arrested.
All the detained gang members
live with you.
You are trapped in an enclosed space.
was arrested and landed in prison
for his alleged role in the fake encounter
of Ramnarayan Gupta,
who was popularly known as Lakhan Bhaiya.
And after that killing,
his brother approached
the Bombay High Court
saying that Lakhan Bhaiya
was killed in cold blood.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] The irony is that for
the 110 or 112 I did kill,
no one questioned me.
But for the one I didn't kill,
I was framed.
who faced similar charges
has come out in Pradeep Sharma's defense,
Sachin Vaze,
accused of killing Khwaja Yunus
in a fake encounter
has sought to justify the act,
calling it "the ideal way
to deal with criminals."
Whether or not it's a fake encounter,
we have to see the result of it.
[WOMAN] You're saying
if a bad guy is eliminated
even if it's a state shootout, it's okay?
Why not?
[BUSY CHATTER]
[ZAIDI, IN HINDI] Naturally, I felt bad
about him being behind bars.
I mean, we have known each other
for 25 years.
When I met him,
we were allowed half an hour together.
We spent a lot of time in silence.
He didn't speak much.
He said, "Hussain,
I have not done this encounter."
"I have been framed up."
believe him when he said that?
Why you want to ask such questions?
[CHANGOIWALA] What happened was
a police team picked up Lakhan Bhaiya
from Vashi in Navi Mumbai.
But his encounter
is said to have taken place
the same day in the heart of the city
off Versova Link Road near
the Nana Nani Park several hours later.
[SIREN WAILING]
What the inquiry found was
that Lakhan Bhaiya was killed
at point-blank range.
I was not involved in that encounter.
[IN HINDI] Everyone involved
received an award.
Everyone gave their names.
Mine was not on the list.
If I was there,
I would have given my name.
I would have led my team.
In all, 13 policemen were charged.
Many of them were believed
to be working for Sharma
or were answerable to Sharma.
[IN HINDI] There were articles,
saying this and that.
I can't say much about it.
[MALE INTERVIEWER] How did you feel
on a human level about it?
Ultimately, a criminal was killed.
It was not a saint who died.
Naturally, you feel bad, but, well...
There was another aspect to this.
The police were said to have picked up
Anil Bheda along with Lakhan Bhaiya.
He was the star eyewitness.
He was the only eyewitness.
Uh, he went missing in March 2011,
six days before he was supposed
to depose before the court.
[MAN, IN HINDI] Anil Bheda disappeared
right before he had to testify.
Anil Bheda was the key witness.
It's clear that Anil Bheda
would have revealed the truth.
in New Bombay in a decomposed state.
So in the end,
Pradeep Sharma was set free,
owing to lack of evidence.
[IN HINDI] In the case of
Lakhan Bhaiya's fake encounter,
Pradeep Sharma has been acquitted.
[REPORTER 1] Encounter specialist,
Pradeep Sharma,
has been acquitted in the Lakhan Bhaiya
fake encounter case.
[REPORTER 2] To hear the verdict,
there were many people present in court.
Among them were a few policemen
and lawyers.
All seemed to be shocked
after the verdict.
He said, "Hussain, I had told you
that I had not done this,
and now the court has accepted
that I have not done it."
[SHARMA] I was punished
for three-and-a-half years
for a crime I didn't commit.
But there is one quality
of a hardcore police officer.
He never accepts defeat.
No matter how much
you push a police officer down,
he'll always bounce back.
Sharma, when he was arrested,
there was a sense of elation
in the underworld.
There was, like, joy.
[MAN ON TV] Pradeep Sharma,
a known encounter specialist,
was very recently reinstated in the police
after the charges against him
were dropped in a fake encounter case.
When we all got to know that
Pradeep Sharma was released from jail,
it did scare a lot of people.
I had thought that the tide
had turned against the encounter cops.
But then suddenly, now he is back.
Fear factor was there, very much there.
I was very glad.
I was very glad
that I was out of the company.
Because nobody knew what would happen.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] When I came out,
nobody wanted to associate with me
because of the controversies.
After that, I was posted
in the district of Thane.
We believed that Iqbal Kaskar
was running an extortion ring over there.
Iqbal is Dawood Ibrahim's brother.
Well, yes, for a person like Iqbal,
who is the main player of the syndicate.
So, we planned our team.
We needed to adopt different tactics.
Iqbal had
seven to eight guards downstairs.
In case any police officer came upstairs,
they would phone him or ring a bell
to alert him and he would
escape down an alleyway.
We managed all those guys.
We held them and went upstairs.
A female officer went in front
in civilian clothes.
So, it was like, "Some lady is here
wearing a headscarf."
As soon as the door opened, we went in.
Iqbal was eating biryani
while watching TV.
Then I said, "Iqbal, come on, let's go."
He said,
"Sir, can I finish my food first?"
I said, "Yes, eat and then we'll go."
That was the only conversation we had.
A success story for the police.
Encounter specialist, Pradeep Sharma,
arrested a fugitive underworld don,
Dawood Ibrahim's brother, Iqbal Kaskar.
[REPORTER 2] Dawood Ibrahim's brother,
Iqbal Kaskar, has been detained in Mumbai...
That was a stunt. That was a clear stunt.
[REPORTER 2] The man in charge of
the investigation is encounter specialist,
Pradeep Sharma,
recently reinstated in the police force
after being acquitted
in a fake encounter case.
[TEJPAL] The news crews conveniently
landed up, photographs happened,
everything happened.
[IN HINDI] We have
an encounter specialist, Pradeep Sharma.
Sir, tell us about the operation,
such a big operation.
he was not such a big fry.
He was only a sibling of Dawood,
but he was not some kingpin
of some big racket.
The Kaskar surname
is always good for front pages.
I think the only reason
Pradeep Sharma did it
is just to let people know that,
"Hey, I've changed."
[IN HINDI] I have executed
much bigger operations than this.
But to go there and arrest him
without any protest
was an achievement in itself.
who had around 100 encounters to his name,
Iqbal Kaskar's arrest
seemed to be an opportunity
to show a little bit of reformation
as a cop who had evolved over time.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI]
No one likes to be associated
with the term "encounter cop"'
or "encounter."
We have solved all sorts of cases
and caught several criminals,
thousands of criminals.
to the Dawood Ibrahim gang.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI]
We have got Dawood living in fear.
Nobody is being troubled anymore.
Before doing any activity,
he will think 25 times.
The guns are largely silent now.
Many of Bombay's gangsters are dead,
in hiding, or under arrest.
[KHAN] I would think that
by killing a few persons,
I managed to remove terror.
I managed to allow people
to live their normal lives.
Subsequently, what happened with
these so-called encounter specialists,
they did it for an ulterior motive.
Now today, unfortunately,
if anyone says "encounter,"
the hackles would rise
that it's something criminal.
But I very proudly say,
not a single one of my encounters
was conducted in a hush-hush manner
or in the middle of the night.
See, killing a human being,
in any case, is not easy.
But if you justify yourself
that you're doing something
for public good, you can cope.
[ANGRE, IN HINDI] Bringing peace
to people, yes, I feel proud.
The identity as Ravindra Angre
that I have got
is from all the encounters
I have done for the police department.
But politicians and big officers
employ a use-and-throw policy.
They will throw you in a ditch.
What can you do?
[INTERVIEWER] Do you feel bad about it?
I feel angry.
Only a coward feels bad.
I feel angry.
[SHARMA] When crime escalates,
police are given freedom.
But when crime gets under control,
encounter cops are no longer needed.
So they are removed from the system.
What I have said,
no one else will talk so frankly.
No, what I mean is, no police officer
wants any kind of trouble
with their senior officers.
[SIREN WAILING]
[SHARMA, IN HINDI]
There has always been crime in Mumbai.
It's ever present.
In the 1990s,
the underworld was fighting
for control over Mumbai...
[IN HINDI] A couple came
to the police station.
They said, "Sir, we were
tied up in our home at night
and two gangsters held us at gunpoint,
emptied our house and left."
These two gangsters had many cases
filed against them by the police,
from murder to rape,
house robbery, everything.
They were contract killers.
[PHONE RINGING]
One day, out of the blue, we get a call.
These guys are at a house evicting people...
[SIREN WAILING]
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
[IN HINDI] As soon as we got there,
one of them fires at us.
[GUN FIRING]
The other one took out his weapon...
and attacked a constable.
[GUN FIRING]
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
I shot both of them, three bullets each.
[IN HINDI] That was my first encounter.
[SIREN WAILING]
gangsters in the business district.
[REPORTER 2] The Bombay police
have shot dead
more than 40 gangsters
in the last two months.
[REPORTER 3] Encounter policemen,
heroes and saviors.
- [SIREN WAILING]
- [CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING]
[IN HINDI] The press called me
"Fastest gun in the West."
[REPORTER 4] Pradeep Sharma.
104 encounters.
- No, sir!
- Stand up!
We have to clean them from our society.
[GUNS FIRING]
[REPORTER 4] Encounter specialists,
heroes with Bollywood films
centered around them.
[IN HINDI] People say
you are bigger superstars
than the film stars who play you.
- [REPORTER 3] Dirty Harrys of Mumbai...
- [RIBEIRO] Criminals in uniform.
[REPORTER 5] Mumbai Police's
Pradeep Sharma
charged with kidnapping
and killing in cold blood.
[IN HINDI] After killing 112 people,
this is the reward I get.
[BIRDS SQUAWKING]
[SHARMA] I wasn't from Mumbai.
When I looked around,
I found everything odd.
[HORNS HONKING]
Life in Mumbai is fast.
The biggest difficulty
for an outsider in Mumbai
is that you sweat a lot here.
There is humidity
and, of course, crime.
[CHUCKLES]
[HORNS BLARING]
When I first joined the police...
MAHARASHTRA POLICE
[IN HINDI] He'd say, "Live a good life.
Become a professor or a scientist."
But then,
I wouldn't have had
such an adventurous life.
I didn't know anyone in Mumbai.
I had no friends or relatives in Mumbai.
MAHIM POLICE THANE, MUMBAI
That's why I stayed
in the police station for 24 hours.
I lived in the police bachelors' quarter.
A police officer like me
has so much violence in his life.
It's a painful job.
But if you have accepted it,
then you have to do it.
- [TRAFFIC BUSTLING]
- [HORNS BLARING]
[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]
[GUNS FIRING]
always had gangsters
and, you know, the bad guys
because we are the organized crime
capital of the country.
For the criminal,
this city is absolutely perfect.
Nobody is inquiring.
Nobody wants to know
where you're coming from,
where you're going.
Nobody is fingering you in this city.
They let you be.
[SIREN WAILING]
Organized crime really exploded
in the '80s and especially in the '90s.
That's when the rules changed,
when common people
were fucking killed across the city.
This is an organized crime case.
It's a serious incident.
He's been shot. I heard it from his son.
[REPORTER 1] The state government
has been criticized
for not doing enough
to control hits by the underworld.
The gangsters were doing
anything they wanted.
They were getting away with it.
It was fear.
[GUN FIRES]
Real fear.
[SIRENS WAILING]
They had become so strong that
they were more powerful than the cops.
[RAVINDRA ANGRE, IN HINDI]
There were a lot of criminals.
Murders happened openly.
No one was safe.
We could not do anything,
we were powerless.
Even if someone committed murder
and went to jail,
they would get bail
and be out in three months.
I didn't like it, but what could I do?
A police officer
shooting someone with a revolver
was out of the question.
was getting out of control.
Police were running around
like headless chickens.
So, that's when I decided
I'm going to get them.
[HORNS HONKING]
When I started studying
the activities of the gangs,
my main focus was on Dawood Ibrahim.
He was a major don.
Dawood had a gang called D-Company.
We had very few sources of knowing
what Dawood is doing.
So we started cultivating informants.
[PHONE RINGING]
One of my informants rang us up
and said two of Dawood's gangsters
were holding a businessman hostage,
and they were armed.
We came and apprehended them,
and then we started interrogation.
In interrogation, they gave us
a tremendous amount of information
about the activities of Dawood's gang.
This organization was operating
on a massive scale.
[HORNS BLARING]
[SHYAM KISHORE]
D-Company is like a huge conglomerate.
I would say, at any given time,
D-Company would add on its payroll
more than 25,000 people.
It's a big industry.
It's got its hands in almost every pie,
from smuggling gold,
silver, electronics, drugs,
bootlegging, gambling.
Dawood was very powerful.
He was like a king,
and I wanted to make it big in Bombay.
That was why I joined hands
with the company.
Dawood would call himself a businessman.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
But he got to the top mainly because
he eliminated all opposition to him.
He would order a killing.
He would want it done
with ten, 20 bullets being shot there,
and then people would get scared of him.
That fear factor
is what he used to thrive on.
Power flows from the nozzle of a gun,
you can say.
[TEJPAL] Their big thing was extortion.
Every week, the D-Company would take money
from shopkeepers in the area.
Everybody had to pay weekly rental
so that business happens smoothly
and nobody comes and busts up your shop.
Anybody who's making money,
whether you're a doctor
or a film star or a builder,
you had to pay money to them
in order to survive and to stay alive.
They were the unofficial mafia
and you had to pay.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
You didn't, next week, boom.
You're off, killed.
Dawood and his men were ruthless.
They were extremely dangerous.
So much of drug smuggling in India
was the D-Company.
Gold smuggling and prostitution,
organized racket,
cricket match corruption, even Bollywood.
In the '90s, it was estimated
500 crores from the underworld
was going into movies being produced.
I mean, this is insane and true.
D-Company not only had their fingers
in various pies,
they owned the fucking pie shop.
[HORNS BLARING]
[SAYED, IN HINDI] Now there is
all this ruckus about Dawood.
I have known him since 1974
when he committed his first robbery.
I used to meet him daily.
I was close friends
with his younger brother, Anees.
They weren't born
with a silver spoon in their mouth.
They came from struggle.
In the beginning, they didn't have cars,
they traveled in taxis.
One day, he gets a tip
about a rival at National Bar.
He had come there to drink beer.
They chopped off his fingers and nerves.
Dawood's name in the area was "Terror."
He was known as "Terror."
[HORNS BLARING]
If a person is murdered in Bombay,
people look at the body and walk away.
Because if they go closer,
they'll be trapped.
Dawood's gangsters terrorized people.
People would not come to the police,
and it was going on unchecked.
I decided that
I have got to get these fellows,
come what may.
At that time, I had about
32 police stations with me.
I picked out officers
based on their reputation.
I wanted officers who were physically fit,
who I felt had the guts enough
to fight fire with fire.
If you shoot a criminal,
you're laying yourself open
to criminal charges.
You are laying yourself open
to retaliation by the gang members.
So no one wanted to take the risk.
But I felt that going after
Dawood's gangsters
would prove that the police
are capable of taking action
and instilled a kind of fear
in the underworld.
One of the gangsters that
I was looking for was Dilip Buwa.
He was by far the most fearless
of Dawood's gang members.
In Mumbai earlier,
Dilip Buwa shot and killed a policeman.
[GUN FIRING]
And he had literally
kicked that dead body aside.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
So we started searching.
And one of my informants came forward
and he was very secretive.
He'd talk only to me.
There used to be the Sea Rock Hotel
at that time.
We parked in the carpark and he quietly
came and sat on the backseat.
He informed me that Dilip Buwa
had ganged up with Maya Dolas,
a gangster who had escaped
from police custody
and they started extortion
on a massive scale.
Maya Dolas and Dilip Buwa,
who are notorious gangsters,
who, between them, must have committed
more than 40 to 45 murders.
My informant said,
"I know where these fellows are."
"At present, they are
eating and drinking in Lokhandwala,
and they were armed."
"Come quickly, because the moment
they finish, they'll leave."
I required 200 policemen
to cordon off the area.
We received information
that some of the noted killers
from Dawood Ibrahim's gang,
Dilip Buwa and Maya Dolas
and several of his henchmen,
they're all armed with AK-47s.
And they were hiding in one Rajwani's flat
in this particular building.
[NEWS JINGLE PLAYS]
[REPORTER] November 16th,
Khan and his men carried out
the biggest operation
in the history of the Bombay Police.
Newstrack was there on the spot
and covered the entire operation
bullet by bullet.
Here is Minty Tejpal's exclusive
first-hand report
of the Saturday afternoon shootout.
Lokhandwala, Bombay. This is Minty Tejpal
reporting for Newstrack.
I was working with Newstrack.
My beat was political
and terror and threat.
So all my stories were shootout
and blood and all that.
At this point,
I came to Bombay to do a soft story.
And I was doing a feature on Pooja Bedi.
And just around lunchtime,
I noticed a buzz around the crew.
You get that feeling
when there's something happening,
and then parallelly I had been hearing
too much siren noise
and what the fuck?
[SIRENS WAILING]
And then I hear over the phone,
the unmistakable burst of a AK-47,
which I know.
I've heard it in Punjab.
I fired it with the army.
[MACHINE GUN FIRING]
Then I took a call right there and then,
telling Pooja, "I'm going to pack up
and check out what this story is."
You can't have an AK-47
being fired in Bombay. A pistol, fine.
But AK-47 burst. I heard a burst
over the phone. [MIMICKING RAPID GUNFIRE]
Like, "This is something."
A taxi guy agreed to 500 rupees
to drive me from Juhu to Lokhandwala.
I'm saying... [IN HINDI] "Come on, go!"
'cause something's up.
We take a left
and we're suddenly at this complex.
I remember when we moved in,
cops ran at us and told us,
"Get out. No press. It's dangerous."
[OFFICER SPEAKING IN MARATHI]
[MAN SPEAKING IN HINDI]
where there are so many people around,
the worst thing that can happen
is an innocent civilian is killed.
The gangsters fired AK-47s randomly,
without any control.
[IN MARATHI] Go over this side.
Over this side or your life is in danger.
The cops wouldn't let us go.
Don't get in on this side.
So I circled around completely like that
and got in here, right behind them.
Suddenly, I'm under the building,
and I'm rolling.
We're in the middle of the shootout.
[IN HINDI] Quick! Get the vehicle!
"You're here, you shouldn't be here."
"Don't move from here,
or you might get shot."
As simple as that.
[MACHINE GUNS FIRING]
[KHAN] Maya Dolas was a cocky fellow,
a very arrogant fellow.
In fact, he was taunting the police that,
"Come and arrest us."
"Within one hour,
we'll get bail and be out."
So I said, "All right.
Now, no holds barred. Let's get them."
[GUNS FIRING]
But we were firing from two sides.
[GUNFIRE CONTINUES]
This is in Lokhandwala, you know,
in a residential complex.
Gangsters with AK-47s
in a shootout with cops in broad daylight.
It's crazy.
[GUNFIRE CONTINUES]
How many people are inside?
Two, three, four, five...
Fuck! Nobody knew.
Even the cops were guessing.
[GUNFIRE CONTINUES]
[YOUNG TEJPAL]
Finally at 5:15 in the evening,
there was a last burst of gunfire.
[GUNFIRE CONTINUES]
As we went closer to the building,
we saw one mangled body
lying on the ground.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
In a four-hour long operation,
with over 500 policemen,
1,400 rounds have been fired.
[TEJPAL] There were seven gangsters
who were dead,
Maya Dolas, Dilip Buwa and five more.
No human being
likes to kill another human being.
It goes against everything that
you have been taught from childhood.
Respect for human life. But then
the persons I shot,
they had not only shot innocent people,
but they shot policemen.
[INSPECTOR QAVI]
One group was headed by me,
which entered from the door.
I was carrying a gun.
It was already cocked.
I said, "Don't move
and surrender yourself."
By the time the warning finishes,
Dilip Buwa,
he immediately got up and shot at me.
[KHAN] If I come across a criminal
and the criminal has got a gun,
if he doesn't put down the gun,
I'm going to shoot him.
This is actually a must for a policeman,
if he wants to live himself.
[IN HINDI] I am here now in Lokhandwala
exactly where the shootout took place.
a tremendous amount of publicity.
Police Chief A. A. Khan.
[SPEAKING HINDI]
something like that had been seen on TV.
POLICE
What that shootout did
was show people, the citizens,
that the cops could fight back.
It certainly boosted the cops' profile.
Everybody likes to see
gangsters getting killed.
[KHAN] This kind of situation
became known as an "encounter."
[ANGRE, IN HINDI] After Lokhandwala,
a positive message
was sent from us to the public.
That the police had done well.
This is how it should be.
You should kill criminals like this.
It felt good.
The police image improved.
I was determined to do something,
to go out and do some good work,
to deliver justice to people.
[SIREN WAILING]
We went after
all the gangsters vigorously.
The gun must be used,
because it's the moral responsibility
of a police officer.
The first time I held a revolver,
my palms were sweating.
But I was too excited.
[SHARMA] I was transferred
to the Crime Branch in '92.
It was in the Crime Branch
that my journey really began.
I had an informant
in every slum in Mumbai.
They see a shootout,
then call me immediately,
"Sir, there's a shootout."
We call this "instant information."
Our intention is to arrest them.
But if someone tries to kill you,
you wouldn't greet them
with a bouquet, right?
The government has given us a gun.
It's not just to hang around our waist.
It's to use should the need arise.
I have been part
of several such operations.
[TRAIN HORN BLARING]
crime journalist in those days.
Me and my other reporter friends like me
supported the cops
who had started doing encounters.
I felt that the gangsters
had no fear of law.
The only language they understood
was bullet for a bullet.
When I went to meet Pradeep Sharma,
he was very wary of me.
He was not willing to talk to me.
[IN HINDI] I explained to him that
I don't have any agenda.
I'm not going to do anything against him.
I'm just looking
for my newspaper's page-one.
Then he started to talk to me.
Pradeep Sharma
had developed an insensitivity.
For him, there was no wrong.
it was a different experience.
[ZAIDI, IN HINDI]
Pradeep Sharma's first encounter,
where he shot those bullets
out of compulsion,
because two people were torturing a woman
and forcibly throwing her out of her home.
He was not very sure
if what he did was right or not.
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
[SHARMA] My first encounter,
I went in haste.
I could have had a well-planned operation.
I could have taken more force along.
I opened fire to save myself.
When their family members came,
I felt very sad.
I was like, "What have I done?"
But thinking of it as an accident,
I was able to accept it.
[IN HINDI] I come from
a very moderate family.
We have been taught that
only God has the right to a human's life,
and the same with death.
Humans have no control over any of this.
These were my values I grew up with.
No police officer
enjoys killing a criminal.
This is the job you selected.
Do your duty.
very conflicted when I meet gangsters.
Many are remorseless.
Many think of killing as a sport.
But there are many others
who go drunk when they have to kill
because they cannot bear
the stench of blood, the sight of blood.
And, eventually, there is remorse.
There is regret.
But the underworld
has a very meticulous way
of recruiting foot soldiers.
It's like brainwashing.
They have these scouts
who are there on every street corner.
They target boys
who come from poor families
but aspire to a good life.
There are school dropouts
and college dropouts.
These people are low in self-confidence.
So what the scout will do is he will give
a small job to the potential recruit.
And he will praise the recruit
so that it builds self-confidence.
He feels appreciated.
In the underworld, they call each other
"bhai," meaning "brother."
It creates a sense of camaraderie.
It creates a sense of belonging.
Which is also missing
from these people's life.
It's done so brilliantly, the recruitment.
There's a reason
it's called "organized crime."
- [SIRENS WAILING]
- [TRAFFIC BUSTLING]
[SAYED, IN HINDI] Everyone considered
joining D-Company.
Everyone, everyone, everyone.
But the name "gangster"
was something we never understood.
Everyone was just
trying to make life work.
When police started
killing Dawood's supporters,
the difference between
justice and injustice,
it was all mixed up.
After that, people started
thinking there'd be a reaction.
He was not the sort of person
to just let something be.
But then Dawood left for Dubai.
was better from Dubai.
His main business was gold.
He used to buy it in tons.
And he had a very good network
of smuggling gold from Dubai to India.
There used to be a profit margin of 25%.
From time to time, I would see him.
Meeting him was a big deal.
Like, any Tom, Dick and Harry
wouldn't have access to him.
He didn't care
about encounter cops initially
because he was safe.
His most trusted lieutenants were safe.
It was only the foot soldiers
who were being killed.
He had to pay them money every month.
And if they were killed,
probably it saved him his money.
But after the riots of '92
and the police reaction,
then his attitude changed.
[PEOPLE CLAMORING]
[REPORTER] The violence swept India
throughout the day.
Stonings, bus burnings, and attacks
on police stations all across the country.
[GUN FIRES]
[TEJPAL] I covered the riots.
They were scary. They were frightening.
And you saw
what humanity is really capable of.
We humans have
so much evil and poison in us,
it's unbelievable.
There are certain incidents
that poison comes out en masse.
[MOB CLAMORING]
It started in
the town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh,
where a Muslim mosque
was razed to the ground.
After that, Hindus and Muslims
all over the country started fighting.
It was violent.
It was very bloody and very violent.
There were neighbors
turning against neighbors.
You suspected everybody.
Can the police be trusted?
[INDISTINCT SHOUTING]
[EXPLOSION BOOMS]
The '92-'93 riots, it was just chaos.
Bombay was the worst hit.
Around 900 people died.
Many of these deaths
were blamed on the police.
They were accused of being heavy-handed,
of usings fire for fire
against regular citizens.
[KHAN] These kind of activities
by the police,
and mind you,
there were just a handful of them,
uh, again, uh, widened the gap
between the police and the public.
The public started
being suspicious of the police.
[MAN, IN HINDI] You just have to be out
on the street and they'll shoot at you.
We are leaving Bombay
in fear of the police.
The reason for our fear is the police.
[ANGRE] Police may have been
a little strict.
But if action wasn't taken,
then the riots would have spread.
We arrested a lot of people,
detained a lot of people.
There was lathi-charge at a lot of places.
People were terrified of the police.
If they saw the police, they would run.
[WHISTLE BLOWS]
the underworld had stayed out.
But Dawood was a Muslim.
And people were saying,
"You are such a big bhai
staying in Dubai."
People used to call him up and say,
"Your community people, your friends,
they are being bumped off here
and you can do nothing about it?"
"You should have some revenge."
"Why don't you strike back?"
I believe D-Company
supplied weapons to some rioters.
The result took the entire city by storm.
[ANGRE, IN HINDI]
The riots went out of control.
They kept spreading.
The general public
have no interest in rioting.
Anti-national elements,
those people cause riots.
[FEMALE INTERVIEWER]
Do you think D-Company
and the gangsters
had a role in these riots?
100%. Dawood enflamed the riots.
He wanted to create chaos.
During the communal riots,
we found a number of
Dawood's criminals transporting arms.
But Dawood was multi-headed hydra.
You cut off one head,
the others were always there.
We wanted to crack down on a bigger scale.
[HORNS HONKING]
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] In Andheri,
there is an international airport.
The illegal activities there
were being supervised by Shrikant Desai.
We used to call him Shrikant Mama.
He was one of the top people
in the company.
He was not into
the actual killing of someone.
Shrikant used to control
the smuggling routes from the airport.
Air cargo, basically.
And they made huge money out of that.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] Shrikant Mama,
he was very strong and powerful.
He was one of the top ten names
in Mumbai in the '90s.
[IN HINDI] I was with my friend
Vijay Salaskar.
We were at the police station.
[PHONE RINGING]
An informant phoned us.
"Shrikant comes to this location."
My team and I headed there to arrest him.
[SIREN WAILING]
As soon as he realized
that the police had cornered him,
he opened fire.
[GUNFIRE CONTINUES]
We both neutralized him.
As soon as news of his death spread,
a pin-drop silence fell.
Nobody imagined that this man could die.
Shrikant, after his death,
D-Company's air cargo section
collapsed, literally.
Dawood was affected,
and he was full of anger
for this and for the Muslims
killed in the riots.
He wanted to send out a message,
but the scale and the magnitude of it
catapulted him to a different league.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[REPORTER] A few minutes
before trading was to end
at the Bombay Stock Exchange...
[EXPLOSION]
- [PEOPLE CLAMORING]
- [SIRENS BLARING]
[REPORTER 1] The bombs devastated
Bombay's Stock Exchange.
[REPORTER 2] The explosive device
placed in a car
in the basement parking area
claimed at least 70 lives.
[ANGRE] At that time,
I was sitting in Mumbai Crime Branch.
[IN HINDI] Shortly after, information
came through about other areas.
[EXPLOSION BOOMING]
A car bomb went off at a bus stop
opposite Century Bazaar shopping center.
[REPORTER 4] Other targets
included banks and hotels.
[REPORTER 5] In total,
12 bombs were detonated around the city.
They were mainly placed in cars.
[REPORTER 6] The deadliest
terror attack India has ever seen.
[SIRENS WAILING]
[IN HINDI] The police were now tense.
What on earth is happening?
The city was shaken by 12 bomb blasts.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] The blasts in '93,
it was a heinous crime, a serious crime.
city center hospital is packed.
The scene here, one of utter chaos.
[REPORTER 8] The number killed
is currently put at over 250.
But it's feared that
this death toll could rise even higher.
[TEJPAL] It was scary.
I mean, for us,
I think it was a 9/11 equivalent.
Discovery of these grenades was the first
major breakthrough for the police.
[REPORTER 9]
The main suspects, known gangsters,
have fled to Dubai
leaving a trail of evidence.
[TEJPAL] Dawood Ibrahim
was accused of the bomb blasts.
Incidents that started
on December 6th in Ayodhya
exploded into this
just incredible act of terrorism.
I think the attack was against the very
existence and soul of this country.
[REPORTER 10] The Prime Minister, Mr. Rao,
said the target
had been India's economic heart.
[KISHORE] Initially, it was disbelief.
But then later, as we saw
the evidence coming up, it was horrific.
I had nothing to do with the bomb blasts.
Not many secrets
are kept within the D-Company,
but this was one of the best-kept secrets.
[REPORTER 11] The arrests made
threw the spotlight
on Bombay's underworld mafia.
[ANGRE, IN HINDI] Until then,
no one ever thought a bombing in Mumbai
could be done by gangs or terrorists.
The concept was entirely new in India.
[MAN] They would like
instability and disorder to prevail
so that they can carry on
their nefarious activities.
[SIRENS WAILING]
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] Dawood's syndicate,
these people are terror.
Love of the nation means nothing to them.
the world's most powerful people is out.
Sharing space with the world's most
influential leaders is the underworld don
and India's most wanted criminal,
Dawood Ibrahim,
described as the boss of
the Mumbai organized crime syndicate,
the D-Company.
[SAYED, IN HINDI] After '93 happened,
he was labeled as a terrorist.
From terror to terrorist.
No one has their future
written on their forehead.
He never started with the plan that,
"In '93, I'll do a bombing."
He didn't think like that,
but the situation kept building.
After the '93 blasts,
our enquiries had started.
From the investigations, we found out
that the bomb blast was planned in Dubai.
[IMPERCEPTIBLE]
Dawood was fully involved
in consignments landing.
Material for the bomb blasts were landed.
RDX explosives were landed.
The government was furious.
Police were furious.
This was like war against the state.
Our superiors were under pressure
to get a handle on this.
[ZAIDI] Just think that
after the 1993 blast,
a special squad
of the Crime Branch was formed.
It included these
encounter specialist officers...
carte blanche, an unlimited power.
Police Commissioner R.D. Tyagi
said, "I want encounters."
[ANGRE, IN HINDI]
The police had to create terror
that is with the consent of the superiors.
"Why have we given you a revolver?"
"We want strict action."
We all knew what they meant.
When certain officers protested
against eliminating people in encounters,
R.D. Tyagi was very angry.
He said, "I know
as a commissioner how I can do this."
"You don't teach your father how to fuck."
The Mumbai bomb blast
changed everything, you know.
[SIRENS WAILING]
The public outcry was so deafening.
It was open season.
The killing fields are open.
Boom. Go for it.
[REPORTER 1] The Mumbai police
have begun an intensive search.
[REPORTER 2] Police are now
out to stop the gang activity
any way they can.
It was fear psychology.
- No, sir!
- Stand up!
[IN HINDI] If they can scare the public,
then we can scare them too.
aren't shy about their tactics.
Shoot first, ask questions later.
[IN HINDI] Not a week would pass
without an encounter.
The Bombay police have shot dead
more than 40 alleged gangsters
in the last two months alone.
The encounter squad
had a sort of official sanction.
Everybody wanted Dawood's blood,
and they were more motivated than ever
to go after his gangsters.
I was like,
"Something is finally happening."
[ANGRE, IN HINDI] We would never
share information with each other
because there was professional rivalry.
We asked them to surrender.
But instead of surrendering themselves,
they started firing on the police.
[SALASKAR] When somebody's
firing towards you,
you don't have time to consider whether
you're firing towards his hand or leg.
We have been taught
that the firing should be effective.
[REPORTER 4] Police gunned down
three gangsters here
in Bombay's central business district.
[IN HINDI] They could arrest anyone,
kill anyone in an encounter.
[MEN SPEAKING IN HINDI]
[REPORTER 5]
Mumbai's encounter specialists,
sharpshooters in police uniform.
[IN HINDI] So the media's reaction
was good, very positive.
16 hardcore criminals.
[IN HINDI] I carried out
four encounters in one day.
squads were created
and they were given unfettered powers.
I had actually objected
to the senior officers.
I said that we couldn't shoot
a criminal on our own whim and fancy.
The aim of every policeman
is initially to arrest the person
and bring him to justice.
And these kind of wanton killings
left a bad taste in the mouth.
I said, "I don't want to continue."
And I decided
to take voluntary retirement.
[IN HINDI] I still feel like
he shouldn't have resigned.
Something must have bothered him
and he resigned.
A great officer.
He had some disagreements
with our superiors, so he had to leave.
When I was posted in Thane,
in two and a half years,
I did 22-23 encounters.
The press, TV, human rights lot, courts,
politicians, and bureaucrats...
- [INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- [HORNS HONKING]
[PERRY] I hadn't even been
in India for a few months
when I began reading about this.
And that phrase "encounter cops,"
it took me ages to work that out.
"What is an encounter cop?
They're having a lot of meetings?"
I remember the papers
kept score of their tallies.
[REPORTER 1]
Ravindra Angre, 52 encounters.
Vijay Salaskar, 48 encounters.
"This guy's got 42. This guy's got 58."
[REPORTER 2] Eighty-five encounters.
Eighty-three encounters.
[PERRY] What was the odd thing about it
was the gangsters
would always be armed with an AK-47,
and the cops would always have a pistol.
But somehow, the cops were never hurt.
You know, how does one guy
shoot 87 people without getting a scratch?
This sounded quite curious to me.
The other intriguing part
was how it was portrayed.
They had laudatory coverage in the papers.
There's something way off here.
[GUN FIRING]
[REPORTER 3] Encounter specialists,
who have come to be
near mythological heroes
with Bollywood films centered around them.
[IN HINDI] How many guys
have you personally killed till date?
Two, five, ten?
I have bumped off more than 50 already.
become kind of rock stars.
They were celebrities.
They were stopped in the street
and they hung out with celebrities.
[IN HINDI] It felt good, obviously,
being in the newspaper,
doing TV interviews.
The press called me
"Fastest gun in the West."
The talk of us acting like heroes,
the media started this.
How is this our fault?
Pradeep Sharma, I would say
back in '96-'97, was down to earth.
Pradeep Sharma, Bombay Police?
Yeah, I am.
[ZAIDI] But then there came ego.
[IN HINDI] People say
you are bigger superstars
than the film stars who play you.
Yes, sometimes people say that.
they want to be the man of the hour.
[IN HINDI] As the police,
we go to arrest them.
But, obviously,
they know they face stringent laws.
If they're arrested,
they won't get out for eight to ten years.
That's why,
to scare the police or to save themselves,
they fire at us. And then we retaliate.
was hungry for going after criminals
and killing them in encounters.
[IN HINDI] When they did encounters,
I was going on the spot
to do stories on them.
get close to them and speak to them.
If you become a good listener,
if you tap that thing in them,
just because you have
given them time to talk...
[IN HINDI] ...you will see
how they share stories with you,
they will vent out to you
and share hidden secrets with you...
your page-one story.
They were in competition with each other,
trying to score
the biggest number of hits.
"I've killed 80." "I've killed 90."
"I have killed 100."
It's going to go to their head.
It looked like that was
the only accomplishment
that they were really proud of.
At last count, Pradeep, you had 92...
A score of 92, and you 78, isn't it?
- Or something like that.
- Yeah.
So it's like a Sachin Tendulkar-Sehwag
or Yuvraj-Kaif partnership.
Who chases after whom?
You are chasing after him?
- No, we are working together.
- Working together?
Merely going around killing criminals
for the sake of building up a record,
or saying, "Yes, I have accounted
for so many encounter deaths,"
that is... I would call it reprehensible.
[CHANGOIWALA] During the late '90s,
Mumbai looked like a war zone.
But the encounter squad was not pulled up.
Somehow everybody saw it as legitimate.
I think it is justified completely.
[MAN 1] Extraordinary situations
call for extraordinary measures.
[MAN 2] This is the thing
that's happening.
But then gradually, human rights activists
started questioning the culture.
I am questioning
the police about this quick disposal.
I'd rather see him
found guilty in a court of law.
[CHANGOIWALA] By 2003, encounters
had killed about 1,200 gangsters.
When you say that the '93 blast
was the biggest carnage Mumbai has seen,
1,200 gangsters is five times
the casualties we had in the '93 blast.
Of course, these were criminals
and I do not justify their actions,
but these were men who had families,
these were men who had wives,
who had children, who had mothers,
who had fathers,
who probably had a chance at reformation.
Then the term "fake encounter"
entered the public discourse.
Their encounters could have been staged.
[KHAN] There was a series of anecdotes
that officers picked up
criminals from their homes,
and they took them elsewhere,
interrogated them and shot them.
[REPORTER, IN HINDI] On Mumbai Police's
number one most wanted list,
Sada Mama Pawle,
was finally caught by the police.
Police retaliated
and shot two dead on the spot.
This is all a media creation.
The public know
who is fake and who is genuine.
[THUNDER RUMBLES]
[ANGRE] I've had 54 encounters.
I don't have any allegations against me
for a single encounter.
All of mine were clean encounters.
Why blame the police then?
We did the work.
became much more dangerous.
Stories were around
that some of my friends
got picked up from somewhere,
and then they were shot.
People were saying, "You are targeted."
"You are a name."
"So you'll also be a victim
of some encounter, a managed encounter."
[FEMALE INTERVIEWER] Were you shocked by
the number of people being encountered?
Yes...
I was shocked.
But people told me, yes,
now it's a more pro-active force.
I did fear Pradeep Sharma.
I had some credible intelligence
he was trying to gun for me.
He had a lot of informers
from the underworld.
People who probably,
to avoid being encountered themselves,
they would say, "Please don't kill us,
I will give you information."
So I made up my mind
that I want to step out of this.
It's not worth what I'm risking.
I felt probably it'll be much safer for me
to be out of the city.
So, November of 2003,
early morning around five o'clock,
I drove to Goa.
I was terrified.
Am I being followed?
Are my phones being tapped?
I do not know.
Probably at the next check post,
someone might be waiting for me
to bump me off.
[SAYED, IN HINDI]
Many were killed in encounters.
And do you know what they did?
They left all their illegal activities
and surrendered themselves to the police
out of fear of encounters.
I always use it against criminals.
[IN HINDI] Slowly the fear spread.
[IN HINDI] What changed for Dawood?
The roads started to close for him.
Everyone knew speaking to a terrorist
would lead to bad fortune for themselves.
No one would talk to him.
of D-Company, they fled.
Dawood went into hiding totally.
It was all about securing your own life.
I took a fake name.
I had absolutely no contact with anybody.
My family members, my brother, my father...
Everyone.
I was quite lonely.
I would stay close to ten years incognito.
Trying to evade
being made a target of some encounter.
[REPORTER] A shootout happened
near the Deonar Crematorium
in North-East Mumbai early this morning.
Nearly 60 alleged gangsters
have been killed in similar encounters
with the Mumbai Police
in the last eight months.
[PERRY] The effect on organized crime
in Bombay was massive.
There have been, you know,
two shootings a week on the streets
by the gangsters.
But by the early 2000s,
it had fallen to sort of two a month.
So encounter cops had a massive impact.
And I just remember thinking,
"I need to meet one of these guys."
I didn't have
a extensive contacts list at that stage.
But I began asking around,
and there was
one particular journalist in Bombay
called Hussain Zaidi,
who was a crime reporter,
who knew everybody.
You know, he had all these guys
on speed dial.
He was very fascinated
with these encounter cops.
He says, "We have not seen
these kind of cops
except in movies like Dirty Harry."
[IN HINDI] He asked me to introduce him
to a guy who would open up
or speak to us in an interview.
[PERRY] He was India's leading
encounter cop.
In fact, he was coming up
to make his century.
It's one of those things
where you're going into an interview
and you want to try
and count your questions
and be quite careful,
tread quite carefully,
and let someone almost lead you to a place
rather than sort of confront them, um...
and I didn't have to do any of that.
It was extraordinary.
I'm interviewing Pradeep,
and in the room next door,
there were a couple of guys chained up,
who were being beaten senseless.
You know, they may kill these two guys.
I just kept my mouth shut
and just observed this.
No one wrote
"These cops are killing people,
executing people on the streets."
No one wrote that.
So, I think I was half expecting to
find out that there was some explanation.
But it was definitely only
when I got there that I realized,
"Right, they are just
whacking these guys... [LAUGHS]
...and making no bones about it."
And telling me that actually.
[IN HINDI]
Hussain Zaidi brought Alex Perry.
He said, "They want to interview you
for a magazine."
I said, "Okay."
I spoke to him the same way
I'm talking to you.
I didn't know how important
TIME Magazine was.
Naturally, they are filth.
We have to clean them from our society.
We met a few times, and he was open.
He was candid.
[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
Everybody knows this is going on.
Everybody agrees with it.
So who's going to complain?
And I used to look at him sometimes
and wonder whether,
"Do you realize that
there is a day of reckoning?"
You know, he was obviously
enjoying the character that he was.
He thought he was being
a service to his community.
And I think these guys all thought
that they had impunity.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] In 2003, I never knew
the value of TIME Magazine.
I had never read it in my entire life.
his victims look at me like God."
"Criminals are filth and I'm the cleaner."
It feels like a kind of Icarus arc, right?
You know, they flew too high.
There was bound to be
some kind of blowback.
[REPORTER 1] Sharma
is the first encounter specialist
to have been removed from active duty.
[REPORTER 2] Sharma,
the first senior encounter man,
to be removed.
[REPORTER 3] He was arrested
last night along with five others
for the fake encounter of an alleged
gangster in Mumbai's Andheri area.
[IN HINDI] I wish
I had never given that interview.
[ANGRE] Suddenly, people
started questioning what was going on.
Everyone was happy
when the work was getting done.
Why question everything after?
[SHARMA] Naturally, I felt bad.
So, the media changed its tune.
I took on the enemies of society.
After doing all that,
they are locking me up.
[REPORTER 1] Mr. Pradeep!
Sidelined by the same force
that had once rewarded him
for his service.
Many policemen see this
as the end of an era.
[CHANGOIWALA] When the TIME article
came out, things went downhill,
not just for Pradeep Sharma,
but for other cops.
Everybody started scrutinizing
the actions of the encounter specialists.
[RIBEIRO] I think they're criminals
in uniform.
- You do think that.
- Criminals in uniform.
Because anybody who is being
given so much freedom
to kill people, who is safe?
Cases that have piled up against Mumbai's
high-profile encounter specialist...
[CHANGOIWALA] There were
many allegations of corruption.
[REPORTER] Builder, Ganesh Wagh,
alleged that his life was under threat
from another encounter specialist,
Ravindra Angre.
[IN HINDI] An extortion case
was filed against me.
I was arrested
and put in jail for some years.
Everyone in Thane knew
that the allegations were false.
Some people were waiting to find anything
against me so that they could trap me.
If a junior gets fame,
will the superior feel good about it?
So there was a little bit
of jealousy everywhere.
the only one to fall from grace.
[REPORTER 2] Sachin Vaze arrested
for the custodial death of Khwaja Yunus.
[REPORTER 1] Praful Bhosle
currently under suspicion.
[IN HINDI] Editors used to visit.
Our names would be printed in editorials.
We were in the front page of news.
of the Mumbai Police.
They were cops
who shot gangsters in encounters
and struck fear
in the heart of the underworld.
[INTERVIEWER, IN HINDI]
After all you've done,
all the terrorists and underworld people
that you have killed,
which brought peace to Mumbai,
is it painful to find yourself
under an investigation like this?
Definitely, I'm hurt. For sure.
[INTERVIEWER] How does it feel?
I mean, we want to know the feeling.
After killing 112 people,
this is the reward I get.
I personally think that killing,
causing death of others is detestable.
As policemen,
I think we should desist from doing that.
These are totally avoidable
inhuman practices.
So it was just a matter of time
that there was resistance
towards police doing this.
By this time, the top leaders
from the D-Company
were all sitting outside India.
I had been picked up for deputation
to the Ministry of External Affairs.
I was handling investigations abroad
and extraditions.
Abu Salem was a big shot member
of the Dawood gang.
He was involved in extortion.
Among the Bollywood industry,
there were around 50 odd cases
throughout the country against him.
Including his involvement
in the murder of Gulshan Kumar.
[MAN 1] Gulshan Kumar
was a multimillionaire.
[MAN 2] To Indians,
Gulshan Kumar was almost a legend.
[MAN 3] With the fortune
he made on film music,
he built this temple near his home...
[MAN 4] Gulshan Kumar
was accosted by gunmen
and shot at from point-blank range
while coming out of a temple.
[RUPIN] Abu Salem was wanted
for the Gulshan Kumar murder case,
and he was wanted
for the Bombay bomb blasts.
[REPORTER 1] Abu Salem
is a high-profile convict...
[REPORTER 2] One of the masterminds
of the 1993 Bombay blasts.
[RUPIN] That was when I decided,
this is one guy that I will go after
and try to get him if possible.
There used to be various news
that he is in the US, Canada,
or in the Gulf countries,
traveling under fake IDs.
The criminals would change
their numbers, their location.
They outwitted the system.
But information technology
has broken barriers.
Interpol headquarters
forwarded to us emails.
The email said that he will go to Norway
and then onwards to Canada.
We tracked the origins of that email.
By the evening, we had come to know
that this email originated from Portugal.
[REPORTER, IN HINDI] In the area
of Martim Moniz is this street,
Rua Da Palma,
where a lot of Indian people live.
The pink building which you see right now
is Rua Da Palma 284.
On the 18th, Abu Salem
was coming down from this building
and right in front near the gate
is where the police were waiting for him.
their constitution lays down
that nobody will be extradited
if the death penalty can be imposed.
The next day, I got a call
from the legal advisor in CBI.
He said, "What do we do?"
"How can we say that
death penalty cannot be imposed?"
"And it is such a serious offense
of terrorism or murders and all."
I said, "Sir, we have to decide."
"The bottom line is whether
we want him back or not."
"If we have to get him back,
there is no option for us
but to give this assurance."
Finally, he did agree.
[REPORTER 1] Gangster Abu Salem
accused in the 1993 bomb blasts
is to be brought to India to face trial.
[REPORTER 2] He is likely to
escape the death penalty
as his extradition from Portugal
was on the grounds
that he would not be given
capital punishment.
[RUPIN] Getting an internationally
recognized terrorist extradited,
it was the feeling of elation
for all of us.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[REPORTER 3] Stay with me, Divyesh.
Abu Salem, one of the main conspirators
of the 1993 Bombay blast...
[WHISTLE BLOWING]
...given life sentence.
Abu Salem has been found guilty
under charges of TADA,
conspiracy, murder, arms act,
and various other charges.
[RUPIN] There is pressure
on the police to give punishment,
but punishment
is the job of the judiciary.
- [MAN 1] Abu bhai!
- [MAN 2] Abu bhai!
[RUPIN] Abu Salem going to prison,
I think it was a message
that societies do evolve.
You don't have to encounter or kill.
There is another way.
[CHANGOIWALA] The death penalty
had been handed out
to hundreds of gangsters
on the streets of Bombay
by encounter specialists.
But there could have been a better way
for the dead and for these cops.
[REPORTER 1] You wanted to say something?
[MAN] Who is going to decide
if this man is a gangster or not?
You have no right to eliminate him.
You are not supposed to kill that person.
Try him, get him prosecuted,
get him convicted.
[APPLAUSE]
[REPORTER 2] Pradeep Sharma
was arrested for the fake encounter
of an alleged gangster in 2006.
Lakhan Bhaiya was killed
by the police in an encounter...
[REPORTER 3] Mumbai Police's
controversial encounter specialist,
Pradeep Sharma, is charged with kidnapping
and killing in cold blood.
[REPORTER 4] Sharma was a poster boy
of the Mumbai Police.
He was involved in 107 encounters
in his 14 years of service.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] A jail is a jail.
You won't have the freedom
as you did outside.
I'm surrounded by all those
that I had arrested.
All the detained gang members
live with you.
You are trapped in an enclosed space.
was arrested and landed in prison
for his alleged role in the fake encounter
of Ramnarayan Gupta,
who was popularly known as Lakhan Bhaiya.
And after that killing,
his brother approached
the Bombay High Court
saying that Lakhan Bhaiya
was killed in cold blood.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] The irony is that for
the 110 or 112 I did kill,
no one questioned me.
But for the one I didn't kill,
I was framed.
who faced similar charges
has come out in Pradeep Sharma's defense,
Sachin Vaze,
accused of killing Khwaja Yunus
in a fake encounter
has sought to justify the act,
calling it "the ideal way
to deal with criminals."
Whether or not it's a fake encounter,
we have to see the result of it.
[WOMAN] You're saying
if a bad guy is eliminated
even if it's a state shootout, it's okay?
Why not?
[BUSY CHATTER]
[ZAIDI, IN HINDI] Naturally, I felt bad
about him being behind bars.
I mean, we have known each other
for 25 years.
When I met him,
we were allowed half an hour together.
We spent a lot of time in silence.
He didn't speak much.
He said, "Hussain,
I have not done this encounter."
"I have been framed up."
believe him when he said that?
Why you want to ask such questions?
[CHANGOIWALA] What happened was
a police team picked up Lakhan Bhaiya
from Vashi in Navi Mumbai.
But his encounter
is said to have taken place
the same day in the heart of the city
off Versova Link Road near
the Nana Nani Park several hours later.
[SIREN WAILING]
What the inquiry found was
that Lakhan Bhaiya was killed
at point-blank range.
I was not involved in that encounter.
[IN HINDI] Everyone involved
received an award.
Everyone gave their names.
Mine was not on the list.
If I was there,
I would have given my name.
I would have led my team.
In all, 13 policemen were charged.
Many of them were believed
to be working for Sharma
or were answerable to Sharma.
[IN HINDI] There were articles,
saying this and that.
I can't say much about it.
[MALE INTERVIEWER] How did you feel
on a human level about it?
Ultimately, a criminal was killed.
It was not a saint who died.
Naturally, you feel bad, but, well...
There was another aspect to this.
The police were said to have picked up
Anil Bheda along with Lakhan Bhaiya.
He was the star eyewitness.
He was the only eyewitness.
Uh, he went missing in March 2011,
six days before he was supposed
to depose before the court.
[MAN, IN HINDI] Anil Bheda disappeared
right before he had to testify.
Anil Bheda was the key witness.
It's clear that Anil Bheda
would have revealed the truth.
in New Bombay in a decomposed state.
So in the end,
Pradeep Sharma was set free,
owing to lack of evidence.
[IN HINDI] In the case of
Lakhan Bhaiya's fake encounter,
Pradeep Sharma has been acquitted.
[REPORTER 1] Encounter specialist,
Pradeep Sharma,
has been acquitted in the Lakhan Bhaiya
fake encounter case.
[REPORTER 2] To hear the verdict,
there were many people present in court.
Among them were a few policemen
and lawyers.
All seemed to be shocked
after the verdict.
He said, "Hussain, I had told you
that I had not done this,
and now the court has accepted
that I have not done it."
[SHARMA] I was punished
for three-and-a-half years
for a crime I didn't commit.
But there is one quality
of a hardcore police officer.
He never accepts defeat.
No matter how much
you push a police officer down,
he'll always bounce back.
Sharma, when he was arrested,
there was a sense of elation
in the underworld.
There was, like, joy.
[MAN ON TV] Pradeep Sharma,
a known encounter specialist,
was very recently reinstated in the police
after the charges against him
were dropped in a fake encounter case.
When we all got to know that
Pradeep Sharma was released from jail,
it did scare a lot of people.
I had thought that the tide
had turned against the encounter cops.
But then suddenly, now he is back.
Fear factor was there, very much there.
I was very glad.
I was very glad
that I was out of the company.
Because nobody knew what would happen.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI] When I came out,
nobody wanted to associate with me
because of the controversies.
After that, I was posted
in the district of Thane.
We believed that Iqbal Kaskar
was running an extortion ring over there.
Iqbal is Dawood Ibrahim's brother.
Well, yes, for a person like Iqbal,
who is the main player of the syndicate.
So, we planned our team.
We needed to adopt different tactics.
Iqbal had
seven to eight guards downstairs.
In case any police officer came upstairs,
they would phone him or ring a bell
to alert him and he would
escape down an alleyway.
We managed all those guys.
We held them and went upstairs.
A female officer went in front
in civilian clothes.
So, it was like, "Some lady is here
wearing a headscarf."
As soon as the door opened, we went in.
Iqbal was eating biryani
while watching TV.
Then I said, "Iqbal, come on, let's go."
He said,
"Sir, can I finish my food first?"
I said, "Yes, eat and then we'll go."
That was the only conversation we had.
A success story for the police.
Encounter specialist, Pradeep Sharma,
arrested a fugitive underworld don,
Dawood Ibrahim's brother, Iqbal Kaskar.
[REPORTER 2] Dawood Ibrahim's brother,
Iqbal Kaskar, has been detained in Mumbai...
That was a stunt. That was a clear stunt.
[REPORTER 2] The man in charge of
the investigation is encounter specialist,
Pradeep Sharma,
recently reinstated in the police force
after being acquitted
in a fake encounter case.
[TEJPAL] The news crews conveniently
landed up, photographs happened,
everything happened.
[IN HINDI] We have
an encounter specialist, Pradeep Sharma.
Sir, tell us about the operation,
such a big operation.
he was not such a big fry.
He was only a sibling of Dawood,
but he was not some kingpin
of some big racket.
The Kaskar surname
is always good for front pages.
I think the only reason
Pradeep Sharma did it
is just to let people know that,
"Hey, I've changed."
[IN HINDI] I have executed
much bigger operations than this.
But to go there and arrest him
without any protest
was an achievement in itself.
who had around 100 encounters to his name,
Iqbal Kaskar's arrest
seemed to be an opportunity
to show a little bit of reformation
as a cop who had evolved over time.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI]
No one likes to be associated
with the term "encounter cop"'
or "encounter."
We have solved all sorts of cases
and caught several criminals,
thousands of criminals.
to the Dawood Ibrahim gang.
[SHARMA, IN HINDI]
We have got Dawood living in fear.
Nobody is being troubled anymore.
Before doing any activity,
he will think 25 times.
The guns are largely silent now.
Many of Bombay's gangsters are dead,
in hiding, or under arrest.
[KHAN] I would think that
by killing a few persons,
I managed to remove terror.
I managed to allow people
to live their normal lives.
Subsequently, what happened with
these so-called encounter specialists,
they did it for an ulterior motive.
Now today, unfortunately,
if anyone says "encounter,"
the hackles would rise
that it's something criminal.
But I very proudly say,
not a single one of my encounters
was conducted in a hush-hush manner
or in the middle of the night.
See, killing a human being,
in any case, is not easy.
But if you justify yourself
that you're doing something
for public good, you can cope.
[ANGRE, IN HINDI] Bringing peace
to people, yes, I feel proud.
The identity as Ravindra Angre
that I have got
is from all the encounters
I have done for the police department.
But politicians and big officers
employ a use-and-throw policy.
They will throw you in a ditch.
What can you do?
[INTERVIEWER] Do you feel bad about it?
I feel angry.
Only a coward feels bad.
I feel angry.
[SHARMA] When crime escalates,
police are given freedom.
But when crime gets under control,
encounter cops are no longer needed.
So they are removed from the system.
What I have said,
no one else will talk so frankly.
No, what I mean is, no police officer
wants any kind of trouble
with their senior officers.