Builder gunned down in Bombay's busiest commercial area

It was lunch hour at Bombay's Nariman Point, one of the busiest commercial areas in South Asia. People were pouring out of multi-storeyed complexes to grab a quick bite....

Suddenly, a ''loud cracking noise'' hits their ears. The underworld struck again, within a week of audio king and film producer Gulshan Kumar's brutal murder.

And yet another builder -- at least 15 have been killed in the last three years -- succumbed to the underworld's bullets.

Natwarlal Mohanlal Desai, one of the four partners of Shanti Star Builders and Developers, had just stepped out of his maroon Maruti Esteem at Tulsiani Chambers, when two gangsters fired five rounds at the builder.

The spot where the 65-year-old builder was gunned down was just a stone's throw away from Mantralaya, the state administrative head quarters, where Chief Minister Manohar Joshi was briefing the media. Even an hour after the killing, Joshi was unaware of the incident, and claimed that the law and order situation in the state was ''well under control''.

Hours later, as if to add insult to Joshi's ''ignorance'', three gangsters were killed in a police encounter near film producer B R Chopra's house at Juhu in north-west Bombay. The gangsters, belonging to the Abu Salem faction of Dawood Ibrahim gang, earlier robbed a Maruti car at gunpoint from the Lokhandwala complex area in north-west Bombay.

The trio, allegedly involved in several murders, extortions and also the murder of Samajwadi Party leader Rafiq Patni, was about to kill another builder.

The gangsters were identified as Nasir Hussain Karbari, Abdul Ramzan Majid Khan and Mushtak Ansari.

Karbari and Khan were waiting in the stolen Maruti car outside a restaurant on Juhu-Tara road, when the police spotted them. The third accused, Ansari stood a short distance away on a motorcycle.

When the police asked them to surrender, Ansari fired at the cops, leading to an encounter.

Briefing the media later in the evening, Police Commissioner Subash Malhotra said he suspected Arun Gawli's hand in the builder's killing. Joint Commissioner (Crime) R S Sharma went a step further. He said there was prima facie evidence that Gawli was behind the murder. However, no arrests have been made so far.

According to the police, one of the two killers, who were waiting outside Desai's office, fired at the builder with a .38 bore revolver as soon as he got off his car. As the builder fell down, the second gangster fired at him. Seven bullets hit Desai in his neck and chest. He was accompanied by his business partner Ramesh Shah and a driver, who escaped unhurt.

Desai was rushed to Bombay Hospital in south Bombay where he was declared dead before admission.

A security guard saw the two gangsters running across a passage that cuts the 11-storey building even as a stunned lunch-hour crowd watched in dismay.

EARLIER REPORT:
Builder's murder jolts Sena-BJP govt, Bombay police chief shifted