LoveStory of a DON‬-ARUN GAWLI

Arun Gulab Ahir was already an established gangster when he married Zubeida Mujawar, aka Asha. Like his father, he had first landed himself a job at Shakti Mills in Mahalaxmi at the young age of twenty. It was when Arun shifted to Crompton Greaves Ltd in Kanjurmarg, that he began to get involved with the underworld.
He joined hands with his old friend and schoolmate Rama Naik, and the two got involved in several local intrangang brawls. He shot to fame when he, along with his accomplice Naik and another goon Babu Reshim (a leader of the canteen workers in the Mazgaon docks), murdered Parasnath Pandey-who ran major matka and liquor rackets-in 1980. They killed Pandey in order to gain control ofthe collection of matka and liquor money in central Mumbai.

Arun was consequently detained under the National Security Act but was released after a month of custody. His power and influence grew after his release from jail. He had got political patronage in 1980s when the Shiv Sena chief, Bal Thackeray, had criticised the Mumbai police for taking stringent action against Hindu gangsters like Arun Gawli and Amar Naik gang and referred to them as amchi muley (our boys). It is during this time that he met and fell in love with seventeen-year-old Zubeida who, like Arun, lived in Byculla. Zubeida's marriage had already been arranged with a boy from within the Muslim community, but when Arun asked her to marry him, she accepted happily.
Naik and Reshim opposed the alliance on the grounds that the two were from different communities; they were aghast that Arun, a Hindu Maharashtrian, was marrying a Muslim. Arun refused to budge, and finally married Zubedia, who then converted to Hinduism and changed her name to Asha. In her, Arun came to find a dependable aide and a woman who would run his household at Dagdi Chawl in Byculla.

Asha, who went on to give birth to five children (Geeta, Mahesh, Yogita, Yogesh and Asmita), initially stayed away from her husband's criminal activities. She raised and educated her children and watched anxiously from a distance as Arun indulged in the bloody battles of the mafiosi.
However, with Arun being a frequent guest in jails in the city, Asha had no option but to take the reins and run the show by proxy. This she did, very effectively, and went on to formulate ingenious ways to protect her husband from the law. Soon her involvement became so vital to the gang that Arun began treating her as his most trusted lieutenant. Over the years, Asha's demeanour changed, as she shed her shy and orthodox ways and turned
aggressive and Wily in her dealings. Since Arun's gang members addressed him as ‘Daddy', Asha automatically came to be known as 'Mummy'.
In 1996, when Arun was locked up in the Kolhapur jail and serving time under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA), I paid him a visit for a story. At the time, he had fleetingly mentioned his aspirations to join politics. The reason-to save himself from a police encounter. The previous
year, Asha had stood for the civic corporation elections, hoping her politicalstanding would help her husband but she had lost terribly. After this, she shifted her focus to her husband's political career, In 1997, with his wife's encouragement and support, he started the Akhil Bharatiya Sena. While he was the president of the ABS, Asha headed the women's wing. It is the women's Wing which was used as a shield for the don against arrests and
police encounters. A group of women would constantly surround Arun every time he walked out of Dagdi Chawl- something that other dons in the underworld made fun of. But the strategy worked. The cops could neither trace him in the crowd nor get violent with the women, hence he was able to escape unscathed on more than one occasion.
In 1998, Asha herself was arrested for her involvement in the Manish Shah murder case.
Shah, a partner of industrialist Vallabh Thakkar, was killed on 2
February 1998 near his Sagar Mahal residence at Malabar Hlill. Police investigations revealed that Shah had been shot by four of Arun's henchmen, at his command. At the time of the murder, the ABS president had been detained at the Amravati Central Prison, under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act.
Subsequently, Asha, in an interview to a tabloid, said she knew that Arun was a criminal but supported him primarily because she loved him. She also said that she longed for a normal life but knew that it could never happen. But I love Arun more than I love myself. Without him, I am nothing. I will do anything for him,’ she said.
In 2002, the ABS contested the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections. In its very first attempt at entering the city’s civic body, two corporators were elected-Arun's eldest daughter Geeta Gawli and Sunil Ghate, who was a onetime contract killer. In 2004, Asha's management and supervision of Arun's political party finally bore fruit when her husband was elected the MLA from the Byculla constituency. In the same year, Mummy, however, is not a disappointed woman. For her, the very fact that Arun is safe and unharmed by police forces, even after being tried
under several stringent laws, still makes her a clear winner. Several top dons like Amar Naik, Sada Pawle and Nari Khan have been killed in fake police encounters. In fact, even low'level acolytes have not been spared by the cops. If Gawli has managed to survive the encounters, and even gone on to
win MLA elections, and if his daughter and party workers have become corporators, it's largely because of his wife ASHA. Arun Gawli rarely steps out of his fortress; it is Asha who goes out and does everything for him, Whether it's canvassing for elections, making the rounds of the courts for legal battles or staging dharnas outside police stations and ministers' offices.And as long as Asha has the support of the hordes who thronged herByculla rally on the campaign trail, Mummy and Daddy's days of working outside and around the system are far from numbered.
-Mafia Queens of Mumbai
By S. Hussain Zaidi,
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