how deep does the corruption go?
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
Very .. ;-)
He he .. more seriously the term "Underworld" in Indian context is a bit simplistic.
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
some of these smaller level politicians of south asia i'm including afghanistan, pakistan and india have connections with the underworld dons right? just to keep the drama alive in certain places
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
Afghan corruption runs deep and the cost is high
KABUL — In a dirty, fly-infested fruit market in Kabul where even basic services are absent, vendors complain bitterly that police come often looking for thinly veiled bribes.
A few miles away, real estate agents say they can’t even make a living selling the gaudy mansions of Afghanistan’s elite because powerful homeowners stiff them on their fees, seeing themselves as above the law.
At the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, experts are working to train a new generation of Afghan prosecutors to tackle corruption. But they, like the government’s own anti-corruption agency, are struggling to overcome constant meddling from powerful officials.
From the highest levels of Afghan government to the dirt-poor streets of the capital, corruption is so consuming it undermines the entire international effort to help build a working Afghan government and gain the trust of its people.
“This country does not want people to live peacefully,” said Najibulla Akabari, 27, who left Afghanistan as a teenager and recently returned.
What he found in his homeland has made him want to leave again.
“In Afghanistan, you have to pay step by step, wherever you go, you have to pay,” said the real estate broker. “It’s a shame for us to say our country is not good. But I don’t like the people here. Here if you are rich, you have no rules.”
Warlordism and organized criminal deals for Afghanistan’s billion-dollar drug trade pose a dangerous backdrop. So do backroom deals to get some of the billions in aid meant to stabilize Afghanistan. The scourge has penetrated top levels of government and filtered down to the once-stabilizing tribal structure of the country’s outlying provinces. Justice is often seen as an item up for auction and police chiefs as local power brokers.
As the U.S. military under Gen. Stanley McChrystal seeks to win over a dubious Afghan public, corruption is spreading like a sinkhole.
“The impact of corruption on the process of nation-building is so huge that it has undermined development efforts of the past eight years,” said Qaseem Ludin, deputy director general of the fledgling High Office for Oversight and Anti-Corruption.
“The insurgency has been fueled by a lack of governance. It’s very common these days to hear that regular people join the insurgency because they are fed up with the government’s [lack of] programs and services. … If someone in a province does not receive timely or just justice, that person will take retaliatory action. One easy way is to turn their back on the government and join the Taliban.”
more can be read here
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
Democracy can’t work for developing nations, the corruption will always take over and slow any kind of progress
****Why Does Corruption Persist in Democracies?](http://pkpolitics.com/2010/06/20/why-does-corruption-persist-in-democracies/)
](http://pkpolitics.com/2010/06/20/why-does-corruption-persist-in-democracies/)http://pkpolitics.com/2010/06/20/why-does-corruption-persist-in-democracies/
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
Dawood message to Zardari: cooperate with U.S. and India in extradition and more of your trucks will be toasted
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
([WMR](http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/)) -- The recent arson attack against a Pakistani supply depot used to supply U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan has, according to WMR’s Asian intelligence sources, the hallmarks of additional paybacks from exiled Indian mob chieftain Dawood Ibrahim.
The attack on the depot in Peshawar destroyed over 150 vehicles. The Pakistan truck route to Afghanistan supplies some 75 percent of the fuel, food, and other supplies used by American and NATO forces in landlocked Afghanistan.
Pakistan has been under pressure from India and some quarters in the United States to extradite Ibrahim from Pakistan to India for his alleged role in the most recent, as well as past terrorist attacks on Mumbai. Pakistan claims that Ibrahim, an Indian national, is not in Pakistan. WMR previously reported that Ibrahim, who has provided assistance to the U.S. military and CIA in the past, is being protected by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in Quetta, Pakistan.
One of the “services” Ibrahim, dubbed the “King of Karachi” for his extensive legitimate and illegal business interests in the city, has provided to the United States and Pakistan is ensuring the security of the truck convoys that travel from Pakistan, including through the rugged Khyber Pass, to Afghanistan and back. WMR has also learned that the truck fleet that was torched by elements, termed “militants” by the corporate media, is owned by Pakistan President Asif Zardari, who has, like Ibrahim, been accused of running illegal business enterprises in Pakistan.
For years, Zardari relied on the Taliban to ensure the safety of his truck fleet that plied the roads from Pakistan to Afghanistan and onward into Central Asia. During their tenuous truce, Ibrahim has helped to ensure the safety of Zardari’s truck fleet. Security for Zardari’s truck convoys has been all the more important due to the cargo the vehicles often transport: gold.
In 1998, Pakistani investigators discovered that Pakistani-owned ARY Gold of Dubai, the city that also serves as Ibrahim’s financial base of operations, paid $10 million to Zardari, whose wife Benazir Bhutto was then Pakistan’s Prime Minister, for a two-year monopoly on the import of gold into Pakistan from Dubai. Some of the gold moved from Pakistan on Zardari’s trucks to Central Asia to support the maintenance of Islamic hawala banking operations in countries like Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Ibrahim has not only sent a warning to his friends in the CIA, as well as his criminal rivals in Mumbai and Tel Aviv, with his attack on Mumbai, but the attack on te Peshawar depot also sent a stark warning to Zardari and the American military in Afghanistan that he will not be double-crossed in any secret deals between the Pakistani government, Washington, and Delhi.
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
the underworld has too much control :(
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
In case of Afghanistan the terms warlord, politician and druglord are mutually replacebale. Throw in Taliban into the mix. US wants to get out of there ASAP and it has to make deals with these creatures to give an appearance of superficial stability.
I won’t discuss India in detail here because our Pak friends already have too much ammo against us ;-). Suffice is to say that India is a democracy, and small time leaders from undeveloped states like Bihar cut deals with some criminals in exchange for money in order to fight elections . India is still a young democracy, and when we mature like US, we will have nicer and much more civilized names like “lobbying funds” and “campaign contribution” for political corruption 
Pakistan, again there is no point in my commenting about it here as it will just turn into a pissing contest. There was a curious case of Tail wagging the Dog. Read it here
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
Its amazing! Two indians talking to each other in PA forum!
Admin, can u please move this to the WA?
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
^well by accident i posted the thread here instead of WA :P
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
^well by accident i posted the thread here instead of WA :P
Affairs in Pakistan are not much different .
Problems are same like India and Afghanistan.
Corruption is at its hike.
Shape is different but problem is same.
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
^yea like drona said with that example of the bihari politicians. there was an article about a book written by a pakistani about the connection between dawood ibrahim and bal thackeray…i can’t find the article now 
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
^
I find that rather hard to believe. Bal Thackery is a two bit thug who stands for "Hindu pride". Dawood Ibrahim is a terrorist who bombed Mumbai in 1992 allegedly for "avenging" the Babri structure demolition.
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
There is no one who can destabilise Dawood company from Pakistan as he has applied a fat money to purchase all present and past Pakistani politicians who always deny Dawood's existence in Pakistan. US and India both tried hard to make some extradition deal with Pakistan but failed. Dawood is indeed an underworld king who has the ability and tantacles to dwarf all governments who rely on civilised world's laws. Indeed all his deeds have a stong backing of ISI.
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
I think this was the article that showed the connection between bal thackeray and dawood, it's a bit long but bear with me:
Re: South Asian politicians and their connection with the Underworld
http://www.hindinest.com/srajan/02948.htm
Portrait of a Don
**The story of Mumbai's underworld don, Dawood Ibrahim, reads like a page from The Godfather**.
By Ghulam Hasnain
"To win the loyalty of a person is the most difficult task
in the world," Dawood Ibrahim, 46, would tell his brother gangsters.
This former street urchin and son of a Mumbai police constable seems
to have managed to earn it manifold. Hated by many, Dawood’s
employees and associates adore him, and would go to any length for
him, including murder.
People who have worked for this Mumbai underworld don,
known as the ‘Gold Man,’ maintain he never abandons his men. He is
also unfailingly courteous and unstintingly generous. “If you are
having dinner with him, he will make sure he starts after everyone
else. If you ask him for money, he will never question how much you
want. He hands out a substantial sum and if you ask how much of it
you can keep, he says, ‘It’s all yours, take whatever you want.’” But
Dawood does not brook fools either, or those who disobey him. And
those who betray him usually do so at the cost of their lives.
Ibrahim lives like a king. Home is a palatial house
spread over 6,000 square yds, boasting a pool, tennis courts, snooker
room and a private, hi-tech gym. He wears designer clothes, drives
top of the line Mercedes’ and luxurious four-wheel drives, sports a
half-a-million rupee Patek Phillipe wristwatch, and showers money on
starlets and prostitutes. He bought Lahore model, Saba, with whom he
reportedly had a passionate involvement, a house and a car. Nor does
he shirk his obligations: Mandakini, of Ram Teri Ganga Maili fame,
former Bollywood actress with whom he had a child is reportedly still
being supported by him.
His daily regimen is also rather kingly. He wakes in the
afternoon. After a swim and shower, he has breakfast. In the late
afternoon, he gives his employees an audience where he briefs them on
their assignments and they give him daily reports of his myriad
businesses.
If in the mood, he engages in a game of cricket or snooker
with friends. And as the sun sets, Dawood and his party set off for
any one of his ‘safe houses’ in Karachi for an evening of revelry –
usually comprising drinks (Black Label is his preference), mujras and
gambling. The long-married Dawood’s passion for women has made him a
favoured client for local pimps. His current liaison notwithstanding,
he whets his allegedly large sexual appetite with a variety of women.
"He prefers virgins, preferably young girls. And he is a
good paymaster. If the market rate for a woman is 10,000 rupees,
Dawood pays 100,000 rupees. He is thus always surrounded by
Pakistan’s top call girls," discloses one of his family friends.
Carousing through the night, Dawood and his companions
quit only at dawn and collectively offer fajr prayers. This has been
Dawood Ibrahim’s routine for several years.
From petty street urchin to don of the Mumbai underworld,
Dawood’s life makes for a fascinating story.
Dawood seems to have realised early in life that crime
paid. His petty exploits sometimes landed him in trouble, but his
father’s position as a policeman saved him from being apprehended on
several occasions. Soon the Mumbai underworld started taking note of
him.
Initially operating independently, Dawood formed his own
gang, which grew into a mega crime network over the years. Both
Hindus and Muslims worked for him, pursuing his by now multiple
business interests, which included drugs, mediating in business
disputes, evicting tenants from old buildings and clearing land for
purposes of construction.
Ibrahim's interests soon led him to Bollywood where he
became a major film financier. At his lavish parties, there was never
a shortage of the mega stars of the day. “They wouldn’t dare refuse
an invitation,” says a friend, who maintains that those who opted out
on account of shooting schedules would suddenly find their dates had
been cancelled or postponed.
Growing Hindu-Muslim tension, fuelled by other underworld
dons, which climaxed after the Babri mosque demolition, changed
everything. The ensuing blasts in Mumbai, and the communal riots
triggered by the underworld itself, caused the Dawood Ibrahim gang to
splinter. One of his top lieutenants, Chota Rajan, often described by
Ibrahim as one of his ‘nauratans,’ (nine jewels) defected and formed
his own group consisting mainly of Hindu boys. Thereafter, Ibrahim
was accused of masterminding the blasts, even though he was out of
town at the time. He could never return to India. Dubai, which might
have been a natural alternative residence, was ruled out because of an
Interpol alert for Dawood’s arrest – the UAE and India have an
extradition treaty.
Thus Dawood fled to Pakistan, managing also to
subsequently smuggle his family, comprising his wife, four daughters
and a son, and certain close associates and their families out of
Mumbai. (One daughter, 12, subsequently died of malaria and is buried
in Pakistan). Today they are all Pakistani passport holders.
For the Muslims of Mumbai, Dawood's role in the blasts
makes him a hero. “You cannot imagine the behaviour of the Hindus
towards us before the blasts. They would hurl insults at our veiled
women, ridicule us and mock our beards. The blasts changed
everything. Now they cannot underestimate our strength; they are
afraid of us,” said a shopkeeper from Dawood Ibrahim’s old mohalla on
Mohammad Ali Road, a largely Muslim neighbourhood, whose residents
shun the press and fiercely guard their privacy.
In Pakistan meanwhile, Dawood managed to establish another
huge empire, comprising both legitimate and illegitimate businesses.
In fact, the last few years have witnessed Dawood emerge as the don of
Karachi.
Dawood and his men have made heavy investments in prime
properties in Karachi and Islamabad, and are major players in the
Karachi bourse and in the parallel credit system business – hundi.
Dawood is also said to have rescued Pakistan’s Central Bank which was
in crisis at one point, by providing a huge dollar loan. His
businesses include gold and drug smuggling. The gang is also
allegedly heavily involved in match-fixing. Dawood’s influence among
the Pakistani cricket players is so well known that a senior Pakistan
cricket official met Dawood to get the names of those Pakistani
cricketers involved in betting.
Some of the Pakistani cricket players admit that at one
time or another, they have sought Dawood’s help, financial or
otherwise. Javed Miandad is allegedly very close to Dawood Ibrahim,
and his recent stint in cricket, despite the opposition from other
players, was reportedly at Dawood’s behest.
Dawood's sphere of influence has also encompassed the
business community, with businessmen increasingly approaching Dawood
to settle their financial disputes with other businessmen or for
financial bailouts. Some former MQM militants are apparently also
working for Dawood as trouble-shooters. However, Dawood’s growing
influence has irked Karachi’s powerful ethnic group, the mohajirs, who
feel Dawood is trespassing on their domain as more and more people are
now looking to Dawood to sort out their problems. “Earlier, whether
it was a case of financial dispute or the construction or
regularisation of an illegal building, people came to us for help.
Now all of them are going to Dawood,” remarked a former leader of
Altaf Hussain’s MQM.
Dawood's business activities are not confined to the
subcontinent. His network extends to several countries of the African
continent, and to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal,
Dubai, Germany, France and UK. His net worth has been estimated at
close to 30 billion rupees.
Meanwhile, not only have the Pakistani authorities turned
a blind eye to the gang’s activities within Pakistan, but many in the
corridors of power have partaken of Dawood’s hospitality. Dawood
often throws lavish mujras for Pakistani politicians and bureaucrats.
A recent guest was a former caretaker Prime Minister.
These are not the only members of the establishment who
have close ties with Dawood. He is said to have the protection of
assorted intelligence agencies. In fact, Dawood and his men move
around the city guarded by heavy escorts of armed men in civvies
believed to be personnel of a top Pakistani security agency.
A number of government undercover agents, who came into
contact with Dawood because of their official duties, are now, in
fact, working for him. "A major serves him a glass of water. Nearly
all the men who surround him for security reasons are either retired
or serving officers,"claims an MQM activist. “And he keeps them happy
– buying them expensive apartments and showering them with favours.
So they are more loyal to Dawood than the government of Pakistan.”
**Why is he allowed to operate with such impunity?
According to informed sources, Dawood is Pakistan's number
one espionage operative. His men in Mumbai help him get whatever
information he needs for Pakistan. Rumour has it that sometimes his
men in Karachi accompany Pakistani intelligence agents to the airports
to scan arriving passengers and identify RAW agents. Both Dawood and
his lieutenant Chota Shakeel, who have international satellite
telephones and mobile roaming facilities, are in constant touch with
their people in India and are allegedly able to garner valuable
information for local agencies.
But Dawood has not severed all ties with India – or even
with Hindu nationalists.
Dawood and his men might claim to be the champions of the
Indian Muslims, but he continues to have close business ties with the
Hindu mafia. One of his close associates claims that Dawood even has
joint business interests with the son of the Hindu nationalist Shiv
Sena leader, Bal Thackeray, public pronouncements of fierce enmity
between the two notwithstanding.
There is evidence to indicate that Dawood is also still
financing Bollywood films. Early this year, the Mumbai police
arrested Bharat Shah, the producer of the Indian film Chori Chori
Chupke Chupke, after proving that the film was financed by Dawood
Ibrahim. And there is nostalgia for the home left behind. Dawood is
said to often cry for Mumbai.**
"Mumbai was Mumbai. There we had everything, here one
cannot have the life or the fun we did in India," said one of Dawood’s
associates