After independence, more than one lakh people of Sindhi family left behind everything and came to Pakistan. Those people had business in their blood. Gradually, it became a prosperous city by way of transit camp and refugee camp. This city was called Ulhasnagar on paper but the largest community there fondly called it Sindhunagar. The city became a hub of duplicate goods all over India. People used to say that USA in ‘Made in USA’ means ‘Ulhasnagar Sindh Association’. There is a saying prevalent in the country that where there is money, there is power. There are some people who ‘manage’ this power. Some people who manage this power are ‘legal’, some people are ‘illegal’. The name of four-time former MLA from Ulhasnagar, Pappu Kalani, is included in this list.
Suresh Budharmal Kalani who is also known as Pappu Kalani. He was born around 1951. He was elected Chairman of the Ulhasnagar Municipal Council in 1986 after emerging as the leader of an organized crime gang in the 1980s. He was elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly as an Indian National Congress candidate from Ulhasnagar constituency in the 1990 elections. He won the 1995 and 1999 assembly elections as an independent. He won two elections in the period 1992–2001 when he was in jail on murder charges. He was again elected MLA from Ulhasnagar in 2004 as a member of the Republican Party of India (Athawale).
MLA Kalani is currently on bail in 19 cases, including eight murder cases. He served life imprisonment in the 23-year-old murder case of Ghanshyam Bhatija on 3 December 2013. Ghanshyam Bhatija was murdered on 27 February 1990 near Pinto Resorts in Ulhasnagar, Thane district. His brother Inder Bhatija, who witnessed the murder. He too was shot on 27 April 1999 despite having police protection.
Born in an affluent family, Pappu Kalani’s uncle Dunichand Kalani was the president of the local unit of the Indian National Congress. The family ran a liquor business and owned several liquor factories and hotels. In the 1970s, Ulhasnagar was a thriving anarchist town, settled by enterprising refugees from Sindh Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947. Illegal construction and unauthorized industrial units coupled with sharp business practices created an environment where “conservation” emerged as a profitable business.
After which soon many gangs started working there under the protection of political parties. Pappu Kalani’s uncle Samara Kalani, also associated with the Congress party, ran the gang led by Chiman Tejwani, while the opposition parties, led by politician Gop Behrani, hired the gang of Govind Vachani and Gopal Rajwani. It is said that both the gangs were associated with Dawood Ibrahim gang. They also use the media effectively, and journalists were routinely paid to remain silent. In 1983, Gopal Rajwani was associated with Pappu Kalani for some time and he brutally murdered Blitz magazine editor AV Narayan with a knife. Rajwani was arrested for this, but was eventually acquitted due to lack of witnesses and poor prosecution.
In 1986 Pappu Kalani was elected President of Ulhasnagar Municipal Council (UMC) and in the same year he was selected by the Indian National Congress Party as its candidate for the State Legislature from Ulhasnagar and he easily won the seat. Meanwhile, there is a rift between Gopal Rajwani and Pappu over the distribution of the extortion money. In April 1985, Rajwani was arrested in an extortion case. Apparently at Kalani’s behest. When Rajwani was being taken to the police station in a rickshaw, Kalani arranged for his men to attack him with bombs and guns. Rajwani survived the attack and eventually fled to Dubai with the help of Haji Mastan, a notorious smuggler and senior don of that time.
In April 1989, Pappu’s uncle Dudhichand Kalani was murdered allegedly by the Govind Vachani alias Gopal Rajwani gang. At the behest of Gop Beharani. This led to reprisal killings – 22 murders in five months. During this period it was said that “there would be a murder every Tuesday in Ulhasnagar.” It was during this period that Pappu Kalani emerged as the leader of his own organized crime gang. In January 2000, arch rival Gopal Rajwani was shot dead in a hail of bullets. When he was coming out of the car to the magistrate’s court to attend a case. It was widely believed that Pappu Kalani who was still in jail at that time. Could be its mastermind.
Several cases also came to light soon after his release from prison in 2001. Where he allegedly tried to intimidate a Bhoir family, a portion of whose land was illegally encroached upon for the construction of Seema Holiday Home, owned by Kalani, which was later demolished, and the shop Also tried to threaten owner Ramesh Rohra. In 2004, Pappu Kalani won the assembly elections again as a Republican Party of India (Athawale) candidate. In 2005 the Bombay High Court ordered the demolition of 855 illegal structures in Ulhasnagar. Pappu Kalani, whose extortion depended on granting permission for illegal construction, passed a law legalizing most of them. However, many structures did not even pay the legalization fees and large-scale demolition was initiated in Ulhasnagar throughout most of 2006.
Pappu Kalani’s group got only 15 seats (out of 76) in the 2007 municipal elections, despite little campaigning by opposition groups, and it is believed that the influence of muscle power has significantly diminished in Ulhasnagar. Pappu Kalani’s wife Jyoti Kalani emerged on her own during the years when he was out of power or in jail, and became chairperson (mayor) of the powerful Ulhasnagar Municipal Council. In recent years, she also faced several allegations of bullying and fraud and lost the 2007 municipal elections. His son Omi Kalani has been named in several extortion and assault cases in 2005. They also have a daughter, Seema.
