# Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar

Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar (died 12 February 1981) was a notorious Indian criminal based in Mumbai. He was the elder brother of Dawood Ibrahim, the current gang leader of the D-Company. The rise of the brothers in Mumbai's underworld and the sympathetic attitude of the Mumbai police department toward them evoked the jealousy and resentment of other established gang members from the Pathan gang that dominated the South Mumbai area. The inter-gang rivalry grew to such an extent that Manya Surve, his gang, along with Amirzada and Alamzeb plotted to kill Shabir and Dawood. On 12 February 1981, they shot Shabir at a petrol pump in Prabhadevi. The murder of Kaskar is an important chapter in Mumbai's underworld as it unleashed a gruesome gang war between Ibrahim's gang and the Pathan gang, leading to a spate of shootouts until the retired don, Karim Lala, requested a truce, and eventually the Pathan gang's dominance was replaced by Ibrahim's gang.

## Early life and entry into crime

Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar, the son of a police head constable named Ibrahim Kaskar, hailed from Mumbka village in Ratnagiri district, Konkan region in the Indian state of Maharashtra in 1955. He belongs to the Konkani Muslim community.
His father Ibrahim Kaskar was a police constable in the CID department at Azad Maidan police station. The family had eight children and they were perennially impoverished. Shabir and his younger brother, Dawood were school dropouts and often spent their days wandering in the streets of Dongri-Bhendi Bazar. In those days, people lived in fear and awe of Karim Lala, the leader of the Pathan gang and Haji Mastan, the smuggler who enjoyed a cult following among the impoverished Muslim youths in South Mumbai including Shabir and Dawood. They and their friends called their group, "Young Company". Their father requested Haji Mastan to give his wastrel sons decent employment. On Mastan's instructions, they worked in an electronic shop at Manish Market for some time, but very soon they were back to their petty crime and mob fights. Soon they found their way into the Pathan gang where they did odd jobs often transporting contraband and illegal goods from one place to another.

## Rivalry with the Pathan gang

The Pathan gang was known by Karim Lala. He was supported by his Pathan cronies like Amirzada, Alamzeb, his nephew Samad Khan, Saeed Batla, and Ayub Lala. The Ibrahim brothers worked with Bashu dada and other gangsters. Being the sons of a police constable and due to the Pathan gangs increasing violence and notoriety Dawood would gain the support of the Mumbai police and develop what was seen at the time as a symbiotic relationship to clean up Mumbai city of its “trash”, term used to describe criminals who target innocents and law enforcement.
By some accounts, Mumbai police officers decided to deliberately turn a blind eye to the criminal activities of the brothers while using their help to target the larger Pathan gang. This resulted in the Ibrahim brothers committing attacks against the Pathan gang with immunity and gaining the support of the general public, law enforcement and local newspapers who hailed them as the “protectors of the community“. A journalist who supported the brothers and helped paint them as heroes was Iqbal Naatiq. Naatiq played a role in bringing together the police and Ibrahim brothers to combat the Pathans, whom he felt unnecessarily targeted innocent civilians. After Naatiq tipped-off the police about Ayub Lala and Saeed Batla’s illegal gambling and liquor dens, they kidnapped Naatiq and stabbed him to death, reportedly 67 times.