He was referring to the praise of the cops who had arrested the accused who fired at actor Tiger Shroff two weeks ago. His comments on Mumbai’s organised crime syndicates are based on the research he did for his movies. Filmmaker Ram Gopal Verma is correct in tweeting that shooters are the most replaceable, most disposable, and therefore the cheapest component of the underworld’s ecosystem.
Verma, who has produced several movies on the Mumbai underworld, including his cult film “Satya” (1998), has become a sort of expert on the subject.
He also ran his gang from jail. Like the Gawli gang, most of his shooters also came from mill workers’ families. Ravindra Phupat, Anil Parab, Janardan Parab, Dashrath Rahane and Shashikant Sagwekar aka Babu Chikna were some of the gang’s main shooters. With the surge in killings by the underworld gangs, the Mumbai Police decided to deal with the crisis with an iron fist. the shooters were killed in police encounters or jailed under stringent laws like the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) Although the gang leaders were safe either at some foreign location or in jail. The story of underworld shooters illustrates that to run a criminal gang, shooters are indispensable, but they are expendable as well.
Because the strong police action deterred new recruitment of shooters, the Mumbai underworld collapsed. Ashwin Naik took over the leadership of the gang after his elder brother Amar Naik aka Ravan was killed in a police encounter in 1996.
Shooters or hitmen have been the backbone of Mumbai underworld gangs which ruled the city with fear in the 1980s and 1990s. An extortion call by a mafia don to a businessman, hotelier, builder, or a filmmaker would be taken seriously only if the victim knew that the don had an army of shooters. These shooters, acting upon the orders of their bosses, who were settled abroad, would spray bullets at the given target. The consequent fear-psychosis then made it easy for the gangs to extort money.
