August 2021

Born in Maharashtra’s Dombivli in the outskirts of the then-Bombay, Rahul loved to draw and paint and write in his diary as a young boy. He was the youngest of 3 siblings in a family of very limited means. The poverty angered him; he couldn’t understand how they always had second-hand things despite his father working so hard. He decided at a very tender age that he would never be the same – he would get or take what he desired.

The young Rahul enjoyed history about warrior lords like Shivaji and Hitler – he adored the fact that their legacies lived beyond their lifetime be it fame or infamy. He too wanted to be remembered. During the 1980s, when Bombay was ruled by the underworld, Rahul followed their tales closely via newspapers and neighborhood gossip; he found their escapades, the battles, the bloodshed to be very thrilling! Thus was born the idea of a criminal life and from this ideology emerged the gangster who fashioned himself as “Bhiku Mhatre” (from the famous Bollywood movie ‘Satya’).

From thereon began the story of Bhiku bhai who slowly rose through the ranks of the underworld through his intelligence, his daring and his knack of collecting friends and followers. He introduced and used VoIP calls to avoid detection, he used the internet to research for numbers of intended extortion victims. He soon became the right-hand man of well-known don Jaidev Reddy. His arrest in 2007 changed everything.