Mumbai, no stranger to violent crime and mafia killings, has been shaken by the daylight murder of music moghul Gulshan Kumar. Although his prominence in the entertainment industry and the circumstances of his death would account for the shock expressed all over the city, there are other factors as well behind it. Coming on the heels of three earlier incidents involving film producers, one of which resulted in the death of a film producer, it has given rise to fears that the mafia is singling Bollywood out for attention. A theory gaining ground is that extortionists have turned from builders and contractors in the depressed property market to greener pastures, the film world being one. In the absence of conclusive official investigations, almost any explanation appears to fit these and other unsolved cases over the last few years, including the murder of trade union leader Datta Samant and industrialist Vallabh Thakkar. All that increasingly apprehensive residents feel certain of is, the metropolis is no longer safe even in the middle of the day.

Rattled Bollywood's spokespersons are right to demand action against mafia gangs from the government and better police protection for themselves. But they should surely also ask themselves what they can do to create a safer environment. It is true the politician-criminal nexus has bedevilled many attempts to crackdown on the major gangs. It is also true that some sections of the film industry, like other businessmen, have not kept their distance from the mafia. Indeed it can be said with only slight exaggeration that the mafia is an extension of politics and business in Mumbai by other means. There are few Chinese walls between legitimate film finance and the stuff invested by gangsters based in Dubai. Although Bollywood has grown more careful after the experience of the early years of this decade, it still needs to put its own house in order. The extortionists are, of course, yet another matter. Here the film industry and police officials need to put their heads together to work out ways of cooperating more closely to bring the racketeers to book. Police officials claim they are not informed about threats in advance. The reluctance of producers and others to involve the authorities for fear of inviting instant retaliation from gangsters is understandable. But Police Commissioner S. C. Malhotra will have to do something about the fact that some of the hesitation is clearly due to a lack of confidence in the police.

Police intelligence has been shown up as practically non-existent in almost every recent mafia strike. The number of instances in which firm cases, as distinct from politically expedient ones, have been built against known mafia dons in the city is utterly disgraceful. It is as if residents of the city are expected to be resigned to a state of uneasy co-existence with the mafia. While shadowy figures in Dubai and Hong Kong have the apparatus to decide the fate of this or that individual in Mumbai, law enforcement agencies here seem helpless to prevent them or track them down. Chief Minister Manohar Joshi must demand more results.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.