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Karim Lala dead, the last of the first dons
» He tried to broker peace in gang wars after Dawood’s brother was killed
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 18: Karim Lala, the last of the first generation of Bombay’s dons, passed away tonight of a heart attack at his residence near Novelty cinema on Grant Road. He was 90.
Lala, born Abdul Karim Khan Sher Khan, controlled the city’s underworld along with Haji Mastaan, Yusuf Patel and Varadarajan Mudaliar before it entered the era of AK-47s, contract killings, shootouts and encounters.
Lala was a migrant who dropped out of the third grade in his village school in Afghanistan and left for Bombay. While Mastaan reigned over the docks and Varadabhai lorded over Matunga, Lala called the shots, with the help of fellow Pathans, in Dongri.
His main business was protection and his gang settled disputes — within families and between traders and businessmen. Lala even sent his army of gangmen for the services of fellow dons Mastaan and Varadabhai.
Among his assets were a building on Jail Road in Dongri and a restaurant called Karim Hotel.
Lala was also known to play the role of a peacemaker. When the two infamous cousins of Mumbai’s gangland, Amirzada and Alamzeb, murdered their rival Shabir Ibrahim at a petrol pump, prompting Shabir’s brother to swear revenge, it was Lala along with Haji Mastaan who stepped in to broker a truce and stop the bloodshed which had claimed many lives.
They made the warring sides put their hands on the Quran and swear they would be friends. However, the peace did not last. Both sides went back to shooting each other in a week’s time.
Eventually, Amirzada and Alamzeb were also killed, and Shabir’s brother went on to become a bigger don than Lala and Mastaan put together. That is Dawood Ibrahim.
Author Pinki Virani quotes him in her book, Once was Bombay: ‘‘Sharab bura, powder bahut bura. There is a lot of money in drugs, but I stayed away from it, can I even take a paisa up with me when I die? You can never leave drugs, not the buyer nor the seller.’’
Lala, like his contemporaries Mastaan and Varadabhai, was the inspiration for Bollywood characters like Sher Khan in Zanjeer played by Pran, and Badshah Khan in Khuda Gawah played by Amitabh Bachchan.
Karim Lala’s burial will be held on Tuesday at Nariyal Wadi Kabrastan.
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