If you have watched the recent crime-action movie of John Abraham and Emraan Hashmi– Mumbai Saga- you must be aware of the character of Amartya Rao. But did you know that Amartya Rao was a real-life gangster?
There were days when the city of Mumbai had a godfather named Amartya Rao.
It was in the 1980s and the 1990s, the era known specifically for the crime and underworld news of Mumbai. So who was Amartya Rao, and what was his life story? Let us read more about it.
About Amartya Rao
Amartya Rao, or DK Rao, was born in Matunga, Mumbai, into a destitute family. His real name is Ravi Mallesh Vora. He faced a lot of struggles in his childhood, and often he had no food to eat and no place to live. His family was impoverished, and thus he had great ambitions to rule Mumbai when he grew up.
In his adulthood, DK Rao started taking pleasure in stealing and petty crimes. He used to steal from his neighbors, shops around his house, and othe places in his hometown. However, with time he started doing more serious crimes and began looting different banks in Mumbai.
With time, he became an expert and started targeting big banks with a lot of cash. Consequently, he made it to the headlines of many state and national newspapers and TV news channels.
While a lot of FIRs got filed in the name of Amartya Rao, he was never sent to jail permanently. Although he was convicted by the court multiple times and sentenced to jail, he used to be set free and made out of jail one way or the other.
During the course of his life as a thief and a robber, his paths crossed with Chota Rajan, who himself was a petty criminal. He asked Rajan to join hands with him, and they both started working in a gang. With time, Chota Rajan got around 71 cases of FIRs against him!
Together, Amartya and Rajan plundered and looted businessmen in the name of protection money and looted shops, banks, and other financial institutions. With time, many gangs rose against them, seeing their popularity. Amartya became a violent criminal when he started finishing all the gangs that challenged their gang or rebelled against them.
Amartya and His Feud With Daud Ibrahim
In the decade of 1980-90, while on the one hand, Mumbai was facing the technological and industrial revolution, the city had to experience the uprising of multiple criminals and gangsters. Amartya Rao, Chota Rajan, and Daud Ibrahim were three of the most popular Dons of Mumbai.
There was a time when DK Rao had control over the illegal activities and the financial activities of almost half the Mumbai city. When Chota Rajan became a famous nationwide Don, Rao became his right hand and his most trusted partner.
Amartya always had a way of escaping the judicial system, and despite dozens of convictions, he used to get out of jail. In fact, there was a time when both Chota Rajan and Rao got arrested for murder, and Rao was able to take them both out of jail easily.
While Amartya’s gang was on the rise and had eliminated all their rivals, there was still a massive rival left to oppose them. It was Daud Ibrahim, the most wanted criminal in India of all time.
Daud Ibrahim- who today has a huge bounty on his head– started as a businessman and got involved in illegal businesses of drugs, ammunition, etc. For business purposes, he also started committing crimes such as murders, extortion, kidnapping, and much more. He became India’s most wanted after he supplied ammunition to the terrorists who attacked Mumbai on 26/11.
Reason Why Daud Tried To Kill Him
In the 1990s, Daud operated as a businessman, and Chota Rajan was a gangster. However, Rajan also wanted to start illegal businesses, on which Daud had his monopoly. Consequently, they both entered into a feud over who was the ruler of Mumbai.
As a result, Rajan took matters into his hand and started a violent fight for supremacy in Mumbai. Because of being a close associate of Chota Rajan, Amartya Rao automatically came into the hitlist of Daud Ibrahim.
Thus, Daud tried to murder Rao multiple times, but luckily, he always escaped. He even sent his people to jail to murder him when he was in for a crime, but he couldn’t complete the task then too.
More About His Life
After gaining so much popularity, Amartya Rao became a popular name for the police, the judicial system, businessmen, and rivals. He affected the lives of them all and the complete police of Mumbai.
In the early 1990s, a daredevil police officer Anil Mahabole tried to encounter him but failed miserably. That period of Mumbai was also famous for encounters, and the police officers were determined to clean Mumbai of all the crime and dirt that had accumulated.
Later, another police officer named D Shivanand also tried to encounter Rao. The encounter was held in Dadar, and four people were killed in it. Rao, however, was again too lucky to evade this encounter. In fact, it is believed that he witnessed seven bullet wounds on his body and was still left alive!
For the third time, a lady police officer named Madula Lad, also known as Mumbai’s Lady Singham, tried to encounter him. For the third time, Amartya Rao evaded the encounter, leaving the police department shocked and disappointed.
In the year 1995, Rao was finally arrested for all the crimes he had committed over the years. He spent around 20 years in jail, after which he was released. All cases against him were cleared in the year 2016.
However, after coming out, he restarted his business of extortion. He threatened so many businessmen and took illegal money from them. In 2017, he demanded 50 lakhs from a famous builder in Mumbai, who filed an FIR against him. The police arrested him again for his crimes, where he resides even today.
Final Words
Amartya Rao has lived some powerful years in his adulthood but spent most part of his life in jail. He became successful as a gangster and even wanted to try his career in politics. However, Daud Ibrahim was after his life. Thus he preferred that he doesn’t come into the limelight, or he would be killed. Therefore, he spent most of his life hiding behind bars.
While the story of the movie Mumbai Saga is based on the story of DK Rao, it is not completely the same. The movie had its own fictional additions to the story. Amartya Roy was shown to be killed at the end of the movie, which in reality, he was not.
Amartya Rao was amongst the most dreaded personalities in Mumbai and India, and his name is written in dark letters in historical books.
