Indian-origin Anvee Bhutani elected Oxford Student ... PG 06 << VIEWS & VISION OF CITY Volume: 12, Issue: 241 SATURDAY, MAY 22, 2021, MUMBAI 12 Pages, ₹2 /- RNI No. MAHENG/2009/29332 www.afternoonvoice.com DADDY’S DAGDI CHAWL Will seek No More An Underworld Den Central help for infra to ... But Beautiful Residency << PG 04 Dr. Vaidehi Taman was a proper underworld afternoon_voice In Dagdi Chawl Here people are we have more syndicate. Presently, the Arun living life in one than 350 tenants Gawli family, which lives in big family, and agdi Chawl once used and they will get the redeveloped building on they have a very to house mill workers houses of 450 sq. the 4th floor, will also be part strong bond with f r o m t h e n e a r b y D ft. area each, the of this project. The ground us. What we want industries in Byculla. Now it is planning is not done yet. Just floor houses the office of the is their overall development. known for the heartened home the local builder has made a Akhil Bhartiya Sena (ABS) This redevelopment can of mafia don turned politician deal to undertake this which was founded by Gawli. elevate their lives for sure." Arun Gawli alias Daddy. The redevelopment project. The The Maharashtra Housing Chawl is soon getting a architectural planning is yet to a n d A r e a D e v e l o p m e n t Asha Gawli, makeover under the cluster be done, we want Authority (MHADA) has Social worker and Arun Gawli’s wife redevelopment scheme. redevelopment but at the same given the initial sanction for Arun Gawli the underworld time we don’t want the chawl the project. The Chawl is a virtual from Dagdi Chawl held regular to lose its typical beauty." MHADA Chairman (Repair stronghold and no one is durbars for the people. The Board) Vinod Ghosalkar said, allowed inside without the PM lauds public would fear coming to Geeta Gawli, "We have given the Letter of mandatory checks by Gawli’s Dagdi Chawl due to its horrific Corporator and Arun Gawli’s Daughter I n t e n t ( L O I ) f o r t h e menfolk. After 1987, when gang reputation. It was also often in redevelopment of Dagdi Chawl. wars erupted in the city, Gawli doctors, news due to police raids in the T h e r e w e r e m a n y This was issued after the and his men remained confined mid-nineties after the Mumbai encounters in Chawl, many residents of Dagdi Chawl gave to these chawls. frontline ... Police decided to take the extortion stories and death their consent to the revamp << underworld head-on. threats from here. This Chawl process." CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 PG 05 Arun Gawli was the one who made his way up through the ranks of Bombay’s underworld agadi Chawl was once a criminal den, even police used to get became their leader. scared of entering here. A chawl known for its chambers, home Arun Gawli alias Arun Gulab Ahir alias Daddy was an Indian Dand origin of the mafia dons and queens of Mumbai. Dagdi politician, and former gangster. Gawli and his brother (Pappa) Kishor Chawl, then, was infamous for another reason, immense grime. Those Ahir entered the Mumbai underworld in the 1970s when they joined the days of muck are the ones that the streets of Byculla wish were a "Byculla Company", a criminal gang led by Rama Naik and Babu nightmare. Reshim, operating in the central Mumbai areas of Byculla, Parel and A chawl that sheltered around 150 families in its small kholis (rooms). Saat Rasta. A street with overflowing sewers, urine smelling houses, garbage Rama Naik was killed in 1988 in a police encounter, Gawli took over collected at every corner of the chawl. People had to see their children die the gang and began operating it from his kholi in Dagdi Chawl. The gang of starvation. Men killed their wives so that they have one less to feed. controlled most criminal activities in the central Mumbai areas. Sons let their mothers get laid for some currency. Poverty and filth Dr.Vaidehi pushed many youngsters towards crime and gangsters like Arun Gawli CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 afternoonvoice.com/editorial [email protected] afternoon_voice afternoonvoicenews SATURDAY, MAY 22, 2021 Editoritis AFTERNOON VOICE, MUMBAI 02 Arun Gawli was the one who made his way up through the ranks of Bombay’s underworld << PAGE 1 money through Matka gambling and hafta-vasuli. Gawli legislator from Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh. He was then joined the "Byculla Company" gang led by very much influential. Throughout the late eighties and nineties, Gawli's gang gangsters Rama Naik and Babu Reshim and supervised In 2004, Gawli was elected as a Member of the was involved in a supremacy scuffle with Dawood their illegal liquor dens. Legislative Assembly (MLA) from the Mumbai Ibrahim's D-Company gang. Mumbai police raided the premises of Dagdi Chawl Chinchpokli constituency as an Akhil Bharatiya Sena In the late 1980s, a time when the old order of dons like several times and finally broke Gawli's underworld candidate. Gawli's rise in prominence is believed to be Haji Mastan, Vardarajan Mudaliar and Karim Lala was operations. Gawli was arrested several times for due to his "native roots" as a local lad, which makes him being replaced by a ruthless new and gangland wars were criminal activities and was detained for long periods distinct from most other non-Marathi-speaking breaking out across the city, Gawli was in the thick of during the trial. However, he could not be convicted in politicians. Gawli's political designs suffered a major things. Many years later, he adopted the politician’s garb most of the cases as witnesses would not depose against blow when his nephew and party legislator, Sachin Ahir, — white kurta-pyjama and Gandhi topi — as he tried to him for fear of retaliation. He was finally convicted of came out openly against him and joined Sharad Pawar's reinvent himself as a political leader. the murder of Shiv Sena leader Kamlakar Jamsandekar Nationalist Congress Party. He was a trivial, wiry man back then — long-haired, by a court in August 2012. Gawli and eleven others Ahir even contested against Gawli in the subsequent dressed in floral shirts, who was moving up from being a were found guilty of Jamsandekar's murder, but later Lok Sabha elections on a Nationalist Congress Party small-time protector of Dawood Ibrahim’s smuggled on, he got interim bail. ticket, resulting in defeat for them both, but a victory for consignments to his foremost rival. It was around this Gawli got political patronage in the 1980s, when the the Shiv Sena's late Mohan Rawale. Gawli's daughter period of the internecine gang wars in Mumbai’s streets, then Shiv Sena chief, Bal Thackeray, criticised the Geeta was recently elected as a corporator to the and a bit later when he decided to contest elections, that Mumbai police for taking stringent action against Hindu Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. his house in Dagdi Chawl was first opened up for gangsters like Arun Gawli and Sai Bansod, referring to Now 65-year-old Arun Gawli’s life has been a roller journalists. them as amchi muley (our boys). Thackeray was coaster of sorts. The man famous as ‘Daddy’ in the And those who came back from his lair returned with challenged by a rival gangster in an open letter carried on underworld has been seen hiding inside boxes, climbing the most fabulous stories. They spoke of a chawl altered the front page of a city tabloid. However, Gawli fell out up his bathroom window to escape raiding policemen, as a fortress, complete with metal detectors and multiple with Shiv Sena in the mid-1990s, murdered Shiv Sena and providing residents of the infamous Dagdi Chawl a layers of security, of a neighbourhood that insisted he be men and formed his own political party, the Akhil proper place to live which in turn ensured that he stayed called Daddy, of free medical centres and darbars where Bharatiya Sena. safe within. instant rough justice was dispensed, of negotiating rooms While his activities were on peak, he met Zubeida Now, this very historic chawl would be developed and and torture chambers, and of buttons which when pressed Mujawar and married her who later became Asha Gawli reconstructed, meanwhile, the scenario is now would reveal secret enclosures and hidden passageways. after Marriage. She was a Member of the Legislative completely changed. There are no stinking lanes, houses Gawli worked in textile mills, located in the central Assembly (MLA) for Maharashtra and they both have are neat and clean, no garbage or stink. Gawli did a lot of areas of Parel, Chinchpokli, Byculla and Cotton Green. two children, Mahesh and Geeta. Geeta is a first-term development in Dagdi chawl. His wife and daughter took From the 1970s to the late 1980s, Mumbai's textile mill Akhil Bhartiya Sena corporator from the Chinchpokli up social work by helping women of the chawl. industry witnessed mass strikes and eventual lock-outs. assembly constituency. Gawli's nephew Sachin Ahir is Educating their children, and somehow they tried As a result, many young adults (including Gawli) had no now a minister and former Maharashtra Minister of State repairing their karma. Modification of chawl is one more employment and eventually found a shortcut to quick for Housing. Gawli's uncle Hukumchand Yadav was a step ahead to uplift the lives of people.