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The Rediff Special/ S Hussain

The mom who turned her sons into killers

Fatema Merchant, 47, is a mother -- and how unlike a mother.

What makes Merchant so different is that she nurtured three sons, made gunmen out of them and gifted them, so to speak, on a silver platter to the underworld. Not satisfied with that, she became a conduit in their operations.

She was arrested last week, together with her second son, Abdul Rashid, from Bara Banki in Uttar Pradesh.

Merchant's sons are part of the Dawood Ibrahim syndicate and belong to the Abu Salem and Chhota Shakeel factions.

"It was the unlimited lure for lucre and the unquenchable avarice for fast buck that led Fatema to turn her sons into gangsters,'' said Thane Police Superintendent Param Bir Singh, who interrogated Merchant.

Merchant and Rashid were picked up for killing Mohammed Anwar, an aide of Chhota Rajan [a gangster] at Bhayander in September. That was what prompted the Maharashtra police to track them down.

Mother of three sons and a daughter, Merchant had systematically inducted her sons, all school-dropouts, into the gang cult. Her eldest, 29-year-old Abdul Rauf alias Raja, is the main accused in the Gulshan Kumar murder. Twenty-seven-year-old Abdul Rashid was Raja's back-up shooter. Raja is reportedly holing up in Dubai.

Merchant now stands accused of conspiracy, delivery and carriage of weapons to killers and hiding them after the deed.

The third son, 25-year-old Imtiyaz is the latest entrant in the underworld. It was his inexperience and lack of finesse that led to the police to Merchant and Rashid.

Imtiyaz was taken into custody for killing Anwar, whose body was found with multiple stab injuries on the railway crossing at Bhayander. When the police grilled him, Imtiyaz told them the whereabouts of his mother and brother.

Sub-Inspector Vilas Patil, who brought the duo back from UP, says Merchant was originally Subhadra Doiphode. She hails from Mandvi village near Pune, and converted to Islam when she fell in love with Dawood Merchant, a driver. Marriage followed, and the couple shifted to Bombay to settle down in a slum in Sewree.

Unfortunately, Dawood, who struggled to make both ends meet, was stabbed to death in 1992 over a petty issue. Poverty drove the family to Mumbra, a township on the outskirts of Bombay.

Mumbra is known for housing Dawood gangsters. It was here that the police, soon after the Bombay blasts, seized over 1500 kg of RDX.

Merchant soon came in touch with Abdul Qayyum, an associate of Abu Salem. She requested him to help her sons. Though Qayyum promised work for Rauf, he had to flee after the serial blasts in 1993 to Dubai. Merchant however continued to keep in touch with Qayyum.

The sons got their first break -- if you can call it that -- when Salem decided to kill Gulshan Kumar. The job was assigned to Abdul Rauf. Rauf formed a group under the name Mumbra Company. As Salem did not entirely trust a novice, he gave the same contract to Mohammad Ali, who commanded the Bandra Company.

Ultimately, it was the Mumbra Company that killed Gulshan Kumar on August 12, 1997 at Andheri.

"Among the 30-odd accused in the murder, Fatema is the only woman charged with conspiracy," say police officials, "She is also the only woman who did not have any qualms in getting her sons into the underworld."

How unlike a mother.

The Rediff Specials

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