Gangster-turned-politician Arun Gawli’s plan to contest the Assembly elections from jail has left the Mumbai Police worried about a fresh round of gang wars. A specialised team of Crime Branch officers has been formed to keep an eye on the Gawli and Ashwin Naik gangs and prevent renewed clashes.

MLA Gawli, also known as Daddy, plans to contest the Byculla seat from inside Arthur Road Jail. His party, the Akhil Bharatiya Sena, will for the first time contest five seats outside Gawli’s stronghold of Mumbai, from Aurangabad and Solapur.

Police sources said the Naik gang is not willing to cede its influence in Chinchpokli, part of the Byculla constituency. Added to the mix is the Guru Satam gang, which too wants to wreck Gawli’s election ambitions.

“Neither the Naik gang nor the Guru Satam would want Gawli to win the elections. We anticipate that these gangs will go to war soon, as we have information that they are garnering their resources,” said a police officer.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria confirmed, “Yes, we are looking at this seriously. We have formed a specialised team of officers who will exclusively monitor the activities of the Arun Gawli, Ashwin Naik and Guru Satam gangs.”

A police officer described the Byculla constituency as the ‘El Dorado’ of Mumbai, thanks to a continuing real estate boom in the former mill areas alongside a clutch of Slum Rehabilitation Authority projects. Stakes here are, therefore, particularly high for gangsters.

The Gawli and Naik gangs, with their respective strongholds in Byculla’s Dagdi Chawl and 144 Tenements in Chinchpokli, have been sworn enemies for years. On April 18, 1994, Ashwin Naik, an aeronautical engineer educated in London, was shot in the head by the Gawli gang’s sharpshooter Ravindra Sawant. The attack left Ashwin paralysed from the waist down. Yet he took over the reins of the gang after his brother Amar Naik was killed in an encounter on August 10, 1996.

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