Mumbai: Fearless as a policeman, peerless as a leader

(From left) Shamrao Jedhe, M A Qavi, A A Khan and Bhanupratap Barge at a medal awarding ceremony in March 1992. Qavi and Barge both won medals during this ceremony

Muhammed Qavi, one of the first members of the original Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) that was formed to combat the Khalistan menace in Mumbai in the late 1980s, passed away early on Wednesday morning. The celebrated officer, who retired as assistant commissioner of police in 2000, was part of several high-profile operations in the 80s and 90s, and was known for his foolproof strategic planning and impeccable understanding of the law.

Sources close to the family said that Qavi, who was 81 years old, complained of chest pain in the morning and was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he breathed his last. He is survived by his three daughters - Farina Kalu, Asma Farooqui and Farha Motorwala. He was staying in Dahisar at the time of his demise.

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A police inspector posted with the Malwani police station in 1989, Qavi was among the first few cops to be handpicked by the late IPS officer Aftab Ahmed Khan for the ATS. The special squad was constituted under then police commissioner S Ramamurthy's supervision after Khalistani separatists gunned down Police Sub-Inspector Lakhmer Singh with the Mumbai traffic police in broad daylight in December 1989. This was when Khalistanis were increasingly migrating to Mumbai following Operation Bluestar in Punjab, which had resulted in the killing of Khalistan leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

Qavi and Deshmukh at a function held to felicitate the ATS after the Lokhandwala encounter

Qavi was soon joined by veterans like retired ACPs Iqbal Sheikh, Sunil Deshmukh and Bhanupratap Barge. Qavi was part of the ATS' very first operation in January 1990, where they traced PSI Lakhmer Singh's killers all the way to Gujarat and shot them dead in a 22-hour gun battle.

"I am yet to see an officer as brave as him," said Sheikh. "His drafting (of legal documents) was par excellence, his command over the English language was terrific, his cooperative nature was worth emulating and his sense of humour, as well as commitment to friends and colleagues, was unmatched."

This writer saw a sample of Qavi's sense of humour first-hand during an interaction in 2021 when the retired cop referred to the 2007 film ‘Shootout at Lokhandwala'. The film is a dramatic retelling of the ATS's encounter with D-gang shooters Maya Dolas and Dilip Kohak alias Dilip Buwa, with Suniel Shetty's character loosely being based on Qavi. "The buggers got me divorced in the film," Qavi had said at the time. "Good thing it was just a film."

But underneath the humour, Qavi still bore the scars of the near-fatal skirmish he had with Dolas and Buwa that fateful afternoon on November 16, 1991. Qavi, Deshmukh and Zunjarrao Gharal reached the Lokhandwala Complex to verify a tip-off about the two gangsters being holed up there. Qavi, as always, took the lead. He gently pushed open the door to the ground-floor apartment where the shooters were believed to be hiding. Buwa, a cold-blooded murderer, didn't even bat an eyelid as he reached for his AK-47 assault rifle and opened fire in the cops' direction.

"Qavi sir took a bullet in his right hand, and could not fire back as a result. I managed to dodge the hail of bullets but Gharal was not so lucky. He was hit in the chest and we had to pull him away as he was bleeding heavily. Had that not happened, we might have finished the encounter within minutes," recalled Deshmukh.
He added that even after Gharal was rushed to the hospital, Qavi was still standing at the spot, waiting for backup to arrive, cradling his bleeding right hand in his left. Around 45 minutes later, A A Khan reached the spot, with plenty of backup.

"Khan sir had to order Qavi sir to go to the hospital, which he did after registering his strongest objections," Deshmukh said, adding that he suffered permanent nerve damage to two fingers of his right hand as a result.

But Qavi was an equally formidable adversary in a courtroom as he was on the field. Barge recalls an incident in March 1991, when the ATS had arrested Baba Bachchi, a dreaded gangster. When the ATS sought his custody for the second time, the gangsters' lawyers started making short work of the public prosecutor.

"Qavi sir asked the prosecutor to get the matter adjourned to the afternoon. When the hearing came up, he himself stepped up and sought permission to argue on the state's behalf. For the next hour, he presented argument after argument, with pin-drop silence in the courtroom and no argument from the defence. We got 14 days of custody," said Barge.

Qavi's circle of affectionate admirers extended far beyond police personnel. He was equally close to their family members as well. Khan's daughter, Alisha, who grew up surrounded by the ATS cops, remembers him as a ‘khush mizaaj' gentleman but also a lethal cop at the same time.

"I once complimented him on the ittar he had applied and from that day on, he always got me a bottle every time we met. He doted so much on my son too, and would always inquire after his health and progress at school," Alisha told mid-day.

2000
Year M A Qavi retired from service as ACP