Machmach ado over D-gang wedding do

Of all things, a matrimonial alliance appears to be driving a wedge within D-Company, threatening to set off a scramble between gangsters who hope to succeed India's most wanted man, Dawood Ibrahim, to run his illegitimate empire, if police sources are to be believed.

The underworld drama features three key characters: Dawood's right-hand man Chhota Shakeel, his brother Anees Ibrahim, and gang loyalist Fahim Machmach.

And the plot twist hinges on the engagement of Anees's son with Machmach's daughter, an alliance which could endow Anees with more might, which is discomfiting for Shakeel, who has been the main man in the gang after the most wanted man himself.

If all goes well, so to speak, and the marriage is solemnised, Shakeel would break away and float his own gang, claim sources in the police who are looped up with the intrigues. He is viewing the current developments in the Dawood family waspishly, overwrought with concern over Anees's rising influence, which is apparently showing in the day-to-day affairs of the gang. 

Many longtime observers of the gang, though, say that Shakeel doesn't have much to worry about. Dawood, the fugitive mobster raised in the warrens of Mumbai's Dongri, has divvied up the gang's expansive work among his henchmen equally, and besides, Shakeel is too precious an asset for the gang to be left out in the cold. Dawood is well aware of his capabilities and connections in the global crime matrix. So it is not likely he would act in a way that would disgruntle Shakeel.

In so far as the marriage is concerned, Chhota Shakeel's stature cannot be dented by the event.

Nevertheless, Anees's rise in the company cannot be dismissed. In the crime world, he has an impressive portfolio. He has been looking after D-company's key businesses of narcotics, money laundering and contract killings. Wanted in India for the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, Anees had fled the country to join his brother Dawood in the United Arab Emirates. He was once detained in 1997 by UAE agencies in the Irfan Goga murder case but was later released. For a long time now, he and his family have been staying in Karachi, Pakistan with Dawood Ibrahim for a long time.

His in-law-to-be, Fahim Machmach, a Dawood aide, was once active in Mumbai with the company's operations — along with Chhota Shakeel. But after the 1993 blasts, he left for Dubai. It is said that Machmach took over D-company's thriving extortion business, much to the dismay of Chhota Shakeel.

Some have hazarded a guess that since Dawood, now 63, has loosened his hold over the daily activities of the gang, Anees wants to move in to fill the vacuum. And he is cosying up to Machmach to consolidate his position in the gang, angering the old-timer Shakeel.

In any case, even if things come to a head and Chhota Shakeel floats a faction, none of this is not going to affect the gang's operations in India, which have already died out, says former Maharashtra IGP Sudhakar Suradkar. The company has been incapacitated, largely because there are no sympathisers within the Mumbai police to help Dawood any more.

All said, Dawood trusts Chhota Shakeel more than his brother Anees when it comes to business, and a betrothal is unlikely to alter that.

But then, marriages are known to unravel.