That's why inspectors from Santacruz police station make it a point to expose me to risks from the area's lawless men.

When I complained about illicit liquor business in the area, PI Ashok Patil insisted I shouldn't visit him at the police station but meet him on the road! He arrived with a six-foot tall Northerner, member of the lawless basti where gallons of illicit liquor is distilled. As a crowd of extortionist and protected vendors surrounded us, Ashok Patil asked the six-footer to convince me they were innocuous!

When I fumed about this ambushto Sr PI Arvind Mahadik, he rushed to consult the `convenor' of the extortionists. Soon one of them came to chat with our building watchmen and check out on me. The watchmen were afraid to identify him and said defiance of the group from Koliwada invites threats of assault.

The senior station house officers' deliberate organisation of my encounters with the local mafia is not just unprofessional, it's criminal. Mahadik had advised me not to contact "these people as they have criminal records, including murder charges." It's common talk in the area that they were involved in burning a grocer's shop and a car in January 1993. A woman slumdweller who was a `nuisance' to them was killed in an accident on the road where there have been no accidents before or after.

I've been living in this area for two decades and know that Juhu Road, Tara and Koliwada haven't been free of violent crimes and bootlegging. I had myself done an expose of the liquor bhattis after visiting them pre-dawn in 1979.

But thequick and strong emergence of the new bhailog is somehow coincidental with enthronement of the alliance government in Maharashtra. They aren't in the same league as Romesh Sharma, but they've organised the classic extortion network involving land-grabbing, thefts of public assets and resources, payoffs, political protection, destruction of citizen's assets, reign of physical threats and legal immunity for themselves and all those who aid these acts.

The inner circle of the coterie are political workers. They don't work at a job or trade but live comfortably. Perhaps their political bosses would inform this constituency how much the parties pay them to help them keep their homes and live without financial worries.

A great portion of the extortionists' purchasing power is spent on buying integrity and dignity of officers of BMC, Bombay Suburban Electric Supply Board (BSES) and police. The officers' income from haftas is so high -- it's said Koliwada liquor distillers pay Santacruz policestation in lakhs per month -- that they're sickeningly loyal to outlaws. Together they run a parallel government on Juhu Road, it's hinterland, Juhu Koliwada and portions of Tara. The state and national laws are suspended, and subverted if need be. Citizens like me who insist on the rule of law are given messages, not so subtly, by police officers themselves by organising polite confrontations.

What's the source of their writ? Money and linkages with powers that be. Some sources of their income are:

`Sale' of public land: A 10 ft by 20 ft strip of Koliwada beach is `sold', locals inform me, for Rs 50,000 with illegal water and electricity connections. A former encroachment collector had told me that in 1980, a strip of the collector's land on the roadside cost Rs 1,00,000 to 2,00,000 for commercial sheds. In the early 90s the collector had retrieved the land but within a year the board proclaiming title of the land was knocked down.

Public land `rent': The coteries' permission andprotection to worksheds on municipal roads or khadi land, with illegal water and electricity connections can cost anything upwards of Rs 5000 per month.

Similar situations exist elsewhere too. Recently Ms Poonam Sinha, wife of BJP MP Shatrughan, pulled rank to clear 10th Road JVPD of scores of trucks parked under protection from `franchisees' of this public land.

On Juhu Road, those who were running stalls before the alliance came to power pay haftas at lower rates only to BMC. Whether they pay BMC directly or the dadas, they don't have to pay legal dues, property taxes, water and electricity bills. We law-abiding citizens pay for them. Heavy-duty machines are operated in stone-cutting sheds. Due to overdrawing of electricity for hundreds of worksheds and heavy-duty machines, the area transformer melts in its own fire annually. We pay for that too.

Illicit liquor `factories': The days when middle-aged women brewed a few bottles in their huts and still had space in the market servedby bigger operators in Koliwada are gone. Now we have factories run on LPG and diesel engines. They pay extortionists and supporting government departments in lakhs, say locals. Must be true. Because when I pointed out the location of one such factory near the airport tower to Sr PI Mahadik, he spun a tale that this man (member of the coterie incidentally) possessed `only' liquor `wash'! As if the wash just drips from the sky into the drums this man has.

The liquor brewed here is supplied all over Mumbai.

How illegal worksheds and liquor distilleries are allowed to proliferate at the base of, and around, the air-traffic tower is a question the police and the civic commissioners should ask their field officers.

Temples of assertion: About a year ago, temples were built almost overnight in many places in the area, including the beach. No individual built them. The funds were `collected' from locals. One can conjecture why they were built. To protect those who `sell' and `rent' out public land andconspire to steal public resources of water and electricity. The `do not touch me and my extortion mafia' is converted to `Hindu territory.'

My being a Hindu and a bhakta doesn't protect me though. Who says only minorities are unsafe in saffron raj? All of us are in mafia-controlled areas.