Story of their Assassins continues ………….

But, who would carry out the job for the ISI? Who would pull the trigger on Tejpal and Bahal? ISI’s experience had taught it that using local criminal dons equipped with trained manpower, local knowledge, weaponry and so on was the best bet. For instance, the ISI had put the leading lights of the Mumbai and Gujarat underworlds to good use to carry out serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993. The terror attack had taken nearly three hundred lives and damaged properties worth millions. However, leading mafia dons, namely, Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Mohammad Dossa, Abu Salem and Abdul Lateef—the main architects of the serial blasts—were either in hiding in Pakistan or behind bars. The ISI therefore had to look for someone else, someone equally resourceful and capable, but not yet on the radar of the Indian authorities.

The ISI’s ‘talent scouts’ looked eastwards in India and zeroed in on a crime supremo—a monster par excellence— from Bihar who was capable, still at large and fairly active. Not only that, he was a serving member of Parliament (MP). His name: Mohammad Shahabuddin (MS).

MS is a criminal-turned-politician whose equal would be difficult to find in the annals of crime. Yes, you may find offenders with darker criminal involvements, criminals who are far more cruel and devious; but, in my nearly four-decade- long police career, I haven’t heard of anyone who alongside his career in crime has been as successful in politics as MS. He had served as a member of Bihar’s legislative assembly for two terms in the 1990s and as an MP for four consecutive terms. His political career thrived until the long arm of the law finally caught up with him.

Born on 10 May 1967 in Partapur village in the Siwan district of Bihar, MS entered the world of crime in 1986 at the age of nineteen. Thereafter, he was involved in several cases of murder, attempts to murder and other grave crimes.



To be continued ………….