The gruesome murder of builder Pradeep Jain will go down in time as one that announced gangster Abu Salem’s arrival on the Mumbai underworld scene.
Journalist-turned-author Hussain S. Zaidi in his recently published biography of the don has noted: “The builder community had started paying up without any negotiations or even a perfunctory struggle.”
“He was not a big name till then. Jain’s [death] changed that. People started taking him more seriously. The murder was followed by a streak of cruelty,” Mr. Zaidi told The Hindu .
In the build-up to the murder, Jain had remained unbuckled by Salem’s threatening calls and refused to shell out money. Salem feared that if one builder got away without paying, others would start doing the same.
“So no one would take the underworld seriously,” Mr. Zaidi has written explaining Salem’s psyche at that time.
Till Jain’s murder, it was a trend that the underworld would call and threaten builders for money but no killing took place. Jain’s murder sent a wave of fear psychosis in the building community, said Mr. Zaidi.
