Once a feared figure in the city’s underworld, gangster-turned-politician Arun Gawli, on Wednesday, returned home after spending nearly 18 years in Nagpur Central Jail.
The Supreme Court granted bail to the 76-year-old in the 2007 murder case of Shiv Sena corporator Kamlakar Jamsandekar, citing his advanced age and prolonged incarceration.
Notably, Gawli’s release comes just months before the long-delayed Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections. This has sparked speculation in the political space over whether the former strongman could still influence Byculla’s 3.5 lakh voters.
At Dagdi Chawl, once his fortress and power base, Gawli received a rousing welcome during the Ganesh Mahotsav, a festival he had long presided over before his arrest.
Who is Arun Gawli?
The son of a retired mill worker, Gawli entered the city’s criminal network following the 1982 textile strike left thousands jobless.
He formed the BRA gang, along with Babu Reshim and Rama Naik, which initially worked with Dawood Ibrahim before breaking away to allegedly run extortion and protection rackets in central Mumbai.
When Reshim and Naik were killed, Gawli took charge, turning Dagdi Chawl into both his residence and an operational hub. However, he soon earned a Robin Hood-like image among sections of the Marathi working class by distributing money to struggling families.
Following this, Gawli’s notoriety grew after his gang allegedly killed Dawood’s brother-in-law Ibrahim Parkar in the early 1990s. The retaliation came swiftly, with Dawood’s men carrying out the 1992 JJ Hospital shootout, killing one of Gawli’s sharpshooters and two policemen.
As gang wars kept flaring up in the city, the Mumbai Police launched a series of “encounter killings” in the late 1990s.
Officers such as Vijay Salaskar, who was later killed in the 26/11 terror attacks, targeted Gawli’s men, weakening his outfit.
In 1997, seeking a new identity, Gawli founded the Akhil Bharatiya Sena and was elected MLA from Chinchpokli in 2004. His wife Asha, daughter Geeta, and sister-in-law Vandana also entered civic politics.
His political career was, however, derailed after he was arrested in 2008 for Jamsandekar’s murder. A sessions court convicted him in 2012 under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), sentencing him to life imprisonment.
Now out on bail, Gawli is back in a city that has changed dramatically over the decades, with Byculla transformed into an upscale suburb marked by luxury towers and corporate offices.
Bollywood too has captured this dual legacy, most remarkably in the 2017 film Daddy, which portrayed Gawli as both ruthless don and family man.
Nevertheless, his return revives memories of the violent decades when the underworld held sway in Mumbai.
His release is believed to have political implications, with the expectation of indirectly benefiting Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT). For many locals, however, the return of “Daddy” is less about politics and more about nostalgia.
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