Ajay (name changed) was barely 17 when he committed his first crime.
He hacked two persons with sharp weapons.
"It was to help my friend win over his bride," he confesses.
"I and a group of my friends attacked the bride's family with sharp
weapons and abducted the girl, who was married off to my friend," he
says after a long breath.
"The police picked me up under section 307 but I was released after my
father bailed me out. And that was the last time my family had to pay
for my release," he says.
Ajay was impressed by the immense power of crime. "It generates
respect. People used to fear us. It was a thrilling experience," says
Ajay, a sixth standard dropout.
His initiation into the crime world came when he was picked up to
abduct a businessman. It was a quarrel over business shares. The three
shareholders who felt cheated ordered for the managing partner's
abduction. "We picked him up from his hometown and then brought him to
our hideout. We threatened to hack him and extorted nearly Rs 50
lakh," he says.
"However, we were paid only Rs two lakh for the crime," he says.
Organised crime
The deal was arranged by the financiers of crime. "They are the
masterminds. They organise the deal, fix the rates and then provide us
(the fieldworkers) with a percentage of the deal to do the job. The
deals are fixed on the value of the extortion amount."
"But for us, all that counted was money, drinks and drugs. We used to
splurge the money and after it got over it was time for the next
crime," he says.
But when pressed for his first murder, he refused to divulge anything
and at the same breath says even if anyone commits such crimes why
would they want to confess such things. "There are many things but I
don't want to divulge as it would put my friends who are in the crime
scene at risk."
Asked about the market rates for crimes in Tamil Nadu, he says a
hi-profile political murder fetches nearly Rs 15 to Rs 20 lakh. An
ordinary murder fetches nearly Rs five to Rs 10 lakh. A real estate
deal is based on the evaluations of the property prices. "But usually
we don't settle below Rs one lakh," he says.
Meanwhile, most of the criminals are getting younger day by day. "This
is because most of the youth are held in awe by the power of crime and
it is an easy way to make fast money. That is why teenagers get
attracted to the crime. Even violence in films influence the
youngsters to crime," he says.
Nexus with politicians
On the role of politicians, he says it is mutual. "They use us and we
use them. They are our only hope for survival," he says. "Most of the
political parties recruit us in their cadres," he says.
Most of the political killings in the state are done by contract
workers, he says.
And when the law nets them how do they plan their escape. "It is
usually arranged in the contract. The contractor has everything ready
at his disposal — lawyers, bail amount etc."
"And when we find we can't escape the clutches of law, we are forced
to divulge the name of our contractor," he says.
"And that is when the names of big sharks surface in the media," he
says with a smile.
Tinkering with law
I have spent time in most of the jails in the state and says Ajay,
adding that sometimes they use the loopholes in the law to escape.
"If someone gets caught, we provide false names of our father and
mother and when on bail get a death certificate from the village
officer," he says.
He says during his career in the crime, he has come across hawala
traders, fake note merchants and pimps. "We usually target hawala
traders and pimps. They are the easy targets because they can't go to
police," he says.
Weapons
But how do they get the weapons. "They are easily available in the
market. A single barrel gun costs anywhere between Rs 10,000 to Rs
15,000. And I owned one, he says. Even the raw materials for country
bombs are available if you pay Rs 1,000. They are mostly supplied by
workers in match factories," he says.
Now Ajay is a reformed man. He has shunned the world of crime after
his friends got killed. Now he has a family and wants to lead a normal
life. But will the past elude him. As he gets on with his new life,
one begins to wonder of thousands of youngsters like Ajay who has
taken this profession for their livelihood and wonder who is going to
reform them.
-shivakumarshreya@gmail.com
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