A Feast of Vultures: The Hidden Business of Democracy in India

by Josy Joseph

During the interrogation of the hit man belonging to the Chhota Rajan gang, Maria and his team obtained a long list of people that the gang would be targeting in the coming days because they were either business proxies or close associates of Dawood. In one of their worn-out files, you can still find the detailed list that the police team made of businesses and high-profile people who were aligned with the two dons, based on the interrogations of the shooter as well as other underworld operatives arrested over several weeks in 1995. During a meeting in Mumbai, one of the officers in the interrogation team shared his diary with me, now worn and bound in leather covers. Many of those in the list are today among India’s leading entrepreneurs. Some are worth many crores, own TV channels, produce Bollywood films and are construction magnates. Most continue to be celebrated faces in new India. Some, like Thakiyuddin and film producer Mukesh Duggal, who was close to Rajan, have met with a bloody end.