While many remember the dark days of the late 90s when firing and shootouts in Mumbai were common with the underworld at its peak, the shootout at Chunabhatti on Sunday points to a different trend.
The underworld is no longer the grave threat that it was in the city, even though every once in a while, threat calls from aides of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim are reported.
Police officers, both serving and retired, said while gangsters like Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan – currently behind bars – made extortion calls to movie stars, producers and even builders, at present, local gangs are fighting to get their share of the pie in the construction industry that has been attracting criminal elements for the past few years.
At stake are lucrative contracts for supplying materials, excavation for laying the foundation of the building, and even carrying out the construction work.
An officer said, “It is not that these small-time gangsters have any expertise in the construction line. The way it works is that these small-time local gangsters will take a contract from a builder, keep a major commission and then pass on the work to contractors and take a commission from them as well.”
The lure of the construction sector
In the latest case to rock the city too, control over the construction sector seems to be the motive as per prima facie investigations carried out by the police.
A local gangster Sumit Yerunkar was shot dead by five people who allegedly fired 21 rounds killing him and injuring four others on Sunday. Both Yerunkar and the main accused Sunny Patil, who at one point worked for Yerunkar, reside in the Chunabhatti area.
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In 2016, Yerunkar along with seven others had been arrested by the Mumbai police Crime Branch for firing at the office of Arihant Builders at Chunabhatti. Jinesh Jain, a partner at the firm, managed to survive the attack.
A local gangster Sumit Yerunkar was shot dead by five people who allegedly fired 21 rounds killing him and injuring four others on Sunday.
The police had said that the firing took place as Yerunkar alleged that Jain had promised them the contract for supplying raw materials for an upcoming building project but went back on it. The firing was carried out to scare them, they added.
Yerunkar, who already had two murder cases against him, had allegedly come out of Kalyan prison claiming his wife was pregnant and had carried out the attack, a police chargesheet had claimed. These charges, however, did not stand as in September this year, Yerunkar and others were acquitted by the Special MCOCA court.
Battle for supremacy
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An officer said after Yerunkar came out of prison, he realised that his aide Sunny had taken over the gang and had also started getting contracts from local builders. It is alleged that after Yerunkar started approaching builders to give him the contacts, it led to fights between the two sides with each trying to establish its supremacy in the area.
The officer added a builder will not pay every gang that approaches them for money and hence there is a battle for supremacy among local gangs to assure the builder that if their gang gets the contract, they will not be troubled by any other gang.
Another officer said, “On several occasions, persons earlier associated with gangs after being released from prison approach builders for work. Builders too require muscle to evict people from houses, provide security, and ensure no one tries to extort money from them. They think instead of just doling out money, they’d rather employ them.”
Another officer said, “Some of these small-time builders themselves start as small-time goons. These are mainly Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) projects or illegally erected buildings that employ such characters”.
Retired ACP Venkat Patil said, “The eastern suburbs see more of such cases as several SRA projects are going on in the Vikhroli-Kanjurmarg belt”.
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It was again a fight over the construction industry that saw an attack on undivided Shiv Sena leader Chandrakant Jadhav while he was on a morning walk in the Vikhroli area in 2019. The attack was alleged to have been carried out at the behest of gangster Prasad Poojari.
Poojari was also allegedly involved in the extortion call made to a builder in 2022. Earlier this year, Pujari was detained in China with the Indian government making efforts to extradite him to the country.
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An officer added, “With all major gangsters silenced by the security agencies, local groups are trying to strengthen their influence and establish their supremacy.”
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