Ali Budesh

Ali Baba Budesh (born in 1957), is a notorious Indian extortionist and underworld don of the Indian Mafia, based in Bahrain. Fearing backlash from the Mumbai police, Budesh fled to Bahrain in the late eighties, where he opened up his new base of operations in the capital city of Manama.

Most of the details of Budesh's early life and background are unclear. Born to an Indian mother and Arab father, he made his entrance into the Mumbai underworld as a petty pickpocket and a street ruffian. The police in Vikhroli, a north-eastern suburb of the city, had registered a case of assault against him. However, prior to his involvement in petty crime, Budesh is known to have studied at a boarding school near Pune.

While living in the slums near the Pankheshah Baba shrine at Ghatkopar (W), Budesh came into contact with some of Dawood Ibrahim's gang members who were on the run from the police, and sought shelter in the labyrinthine slums of the Vikhroli Parksite area. Budeshi was rewarded for his initial assistance of these men, when he was sent to Dubai and met Dawood Ibrahim, the infamous head of the D-Company and India's most wanted fugitive.

Budesh later split from the D-Company, together with other key aides of Dawood Ibrahim such as the Pakistani smuggler Shoaib Khan, Irfan Goga, and Ijaz Pathan, and formed his own separate gang with its headquarters in Bahrain. He allied himself with some of Dawood Ibrahim's enemies and went on to lead them against him. These a feared gangster from Virar-Virar, Subhash Singh Thakur, who is currently lodged in New Delhi's Tihar Central Prison. Another former Ibrahim aide, Dilawar Khan, became Budesh's right-hand man. This alliance caused some major upsets to Ibrahim's declining empire.

He also began informing on members of the D-Company to law enforcement. The detention of Dawood Ibrahim's brother, Anees Ibrahim at the Bahrain International Airport at Muharraq in 1996 is believed to have been due to a tip-off from Budesh. Dawood spent over Rs 5 lakh for his brother's release. Similarly, the month-long incarceration of Abu Salem, another key underworld figure at the UAE's Al-Rafa detention centre was attributed to Budesh. Budesh also began informing on other Indian NRI gangsters such as Chhota Shakeel, Noora Ibrahim, etc., forcing them to flee the UAE for Pakistan, where they are believed to have made their base of operations in Karachi.

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Wikipedia