Versova, a posh locality in suburban Mumbai, enters the narrative of Mafia Queens of Mumbai as the site where Tarannum Khan, the celebrated bar dancer of Deepa Bar and Restaurant, built her bungalow Tanishq, a symbol of her rise from poverty that became the focus of an Income Tax raid in 2005, exposing her links to an international cricket betting racket and leading to her arrest.

Tarannum's Rise and the Purchase of Land

Tarannum Khan's journey to Versova began in the struggles of her teenage years. Although she had a diploma in computer education, her ambitions lay elsewhere—she wanted to become an air-hostess. However, times were rough for her family. Her parents had endured grave financial loss when their home at Sion in central Mumbai was set on fire during the Hindu-Muslims riots of 1992-93. Further, her mother, who suffered from diabetes and a heart problem, needed immediate medical attention. At the young age of seventeen, Tarannum had to give up on her dreams and do menial jobs to meet the medical expenses of her ailing mother. Her efforts were either too little or simply inadequate, and this is when she took to dancing at bars.

Tarannum's popularity soared to such heights that within a year, she was called to Dubai to perform for a few clients. She was unremittingly showered with money and gifts. It wasn't long before she could buy herself a plot from the MHADA—a state body that provides affordable housing—in the posh locality of Versova in Mumbai, where she later built a bungalow. The bungalow on SVP Road, Versova, was bought with her 'hard-earned' money, as she would later claim. She stated that she bought the bungalow for Rs 27 lakh from the MHADA five years before the raid, when the land there was marshy and deserted.

The 2005 Income Tax Raid on Tanishq

On 29 August 2005, Income Tax officials raided Tarannum's bungalow when they learnt that she had failed to file her I-T returns for over four years. Incidentally, the MHADA had also been planning to issue a notice against her for not complying with property tax rules. During the raid, I-T officials seized over Rs 22 lakh in cash, and gold jewellery worth Rs 8 lakh from her bungalow that was now worth Rs 1.25 crore. In her defence, Tarannum claimed that she had not filed her I-T returns because her chartered accountant had misguided her.

Her troubles were not to end here. Further investigations by I-T officials shockingly revealed the phone numbers of some notorious cricket bookies and an international Sri Lankan cricketer on her cell phone. The case was immediately handed over to the Mumbai police to probe if Tarannum was in any way associated with a betting racket. Several names emerged during the investigations, including bookie-turned producer Jagdish Sodha, bookies Shobhan Mehta, Pradip Kumar and Milind Dhiraj Nandu, alias DJ. The police had also found enough evidence to show that she had placed bets for an Australia-England match on 20 August 2005, for which she was to receive anywhere between Rs 20 to 30 lakh.

Tarannum's Defence and the Aftermath

In her defence, Tarannum claimed that she had always harboured the impression that punters did not commit any crime by betting on the game. 'It is only the bookies who violate the law,' she said. She asserted that the bungalow was bought with her own money, saved over a period of seven to eight years, and that it did not belong to any bookie or some ugly-looking cricketer. When asked how she could accumulate so much money if she worked as a bar girl, she said, 'I had an affluent clientele. All my patrons worked with multinationals. Any bar girl can do thumkas, but regular visitors knew me for my original dances and rewarded me for my talent, not for my looks.' She also denied links with the underworld and asserted that she never indulged in prostitution, claiming that upmarket bars don't get involved in such practices.

Finally, on 15 September 2005, the police, under intense pressure from the state government and the media, arrested Tarannum, along with two other bookies, under the charges of criminal conspiracy and gambling. For the first time, the police invoked provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Act in a gambling case and slapped charges of misuse of IT against the trio. Tarannum had to spend the next two months at the Byculla Women's Jail before she was granted bail by a sessions court in November 2005. After receiving bail, a disturbed Tarannum complained about how she was being treated. 'Now, people point at my home and say, "Look, this is the house where the bar girl stays". Now all of India knows about me. I want an answer from the government: what will happen if all the allegations levelled against me are false? Who will be responsible for it?' she had said in an interview.

Versova as a Symbol of Contradiction

Versova, as depicted in the narrative, embodies a stark contradiction. It is a posh locality where Tarannum, a bar dancer, could build a bungalow worth Rs 1.25 crore, a testament to her financial success in an illicit economy. Yet, it is also the site where her downfall began, as the raid on Tanishq exposed her secrets and transformed her from a celebrated figure into a national scandal. The bungalow, once a symbol of her hard-earned success, became a marker of her infamy, with people pointing at her home and saying, 'Look, this is the house where the bar girl stays'. The locality thus serves as a backdrop for the rise and fall of one of Mumbai's most controversial bar girls, highlighting the precariousness of wealth earned outside the law.