Salim the Disposable continues....

Chota Rajan had become the self-styled leader of the Hindu gangsters, who had either been expelled by the D-company bosses or had left on their own. The two factions were targeting each other’s men one by one. Rajan had already got Manish Lala (Dawood’s legal advisor), Thakayuddin Wahid (of East-West Airlines suspected to be a front company of Dawood), Mirza Dilshad Beg (a Nepal based mobster close to Dawood), Irfan Goga (a Dubai based Dawood associate) etc killed. Further, Chota Rajan had vowed to kill every accused in the serial blasts one by one.

At 11.30 am on April 21, 1998, Salim lay on a hospital bed in Ward Number 1 of Bellevue Nursing Home on Veera Desai Road, Andheri (West) in Mumbai. A group of eleven assailants entered the nursing home. An advance reconnaissance had identified the exact location of the target they were determined to do away with. Members of the hit-team positioned themselves strategically inside the hospital to meet any last-minute contigencies. Five of them barged into Ward 1 and shot Salim Kurla eight times before he slumped dead in his hospital bed. His driver Arif Cablewala attending on him received four bullets and succumbed to his injuries a little later.

Thus, Salim became the first victim of Rajan’s bloody campaign against the Mumbai blasts accused. The others to follow were Mohammad Jindran, Hanif Kadawala, Rafiq Madi (survived the attack on him miraculously), Mohammad Shakil and Majid Khan (brother of accused Yeda Yaqoob) and Akbar Abu Sama Khan. The killing spree would have continued but for a near fatal attack on Chota Rajan himself in Bangkok on September 15, 2000, masterminded by Dawood’s right-hand man Chota Shakeel.

Scott Adams, the famous American writer, cartoonist and creator of Dilbert comic strip, once observed: ‘When times are bad, gloves come off and employers are less nice. People become disposable.’ Salim Kurla had outlived his utility and D-company had fallen orelatively bad times compared to their hey-days when their writ ran large in Mumbai. Salim had become disposable, destined to be cast aside by his bosses and meet a bloody end.