C.D. Bhesadia

C.D. Bhesadia, whose full name was Coovershaw Dinshaw Bhesadia, occupies a singular place in the criminal history of Mumbai: he is the police officer who brought down the city's most legendary female bootlegger and then, in a twist that defines the moral ambiguity of the underworld, came to depend on her as a key informer. His career arc, from a determined sub-inspector in the X Division to a celebrated detective in the Anti-Corruption Bureau, mirrors the strange symbiosis between the law and the lawless that runs through the stories of the women chronicled in Mafia Queens of Mumbai.

The 1962 Bust

In 1962, Bhesadia, then a sub-inspector in the X Division, acted on a tip-off and, together with another determined officer, sub-inspector Ramakant Temkar, managed to break into Jenabai's house and catch her red-handed. The raid finally busted one of the biggest liquor mafia scams of the time. After scanning all the rooms in the building, the officers found the illicit liquor hidden in the water tank of the room belonging to Jenabai's aide, Vicky. The discovery was the culmination of years of frustration for the police, who had raided Jenabai's room several times before without gathering anything, because she knew how to manipulate people—she would place photographs of gods and goddesses in the corner of her room, hiding her entire liquor stock in a chest or box below those photos, so that the police, assuming the space was sacred, would refrain from searching that area properly. The 1962 bust was a rare victory against a woman who had long outwitted the authorities, and it earned Bhesadia recognition.

Rise in the Police Force

Two years after the bust, in 1964, Bhesadia was rewarded by the then Mumbai Police Commissioner S. Majeedullah for his services. The recognition marked the beginning of a distinguished career: he went on to become one of the most talented detectives in the Anti-Corruption Bureau, eventually retiring as assistant commissioner of police, Crime Branch. His trajectory from a local sub-inspector to a senior officer in the Crime Branch placed him at the heart of the city's fight against organized crime, a position from which he would witness the rise of the very underworld figures whose stories fill the book.

The Informer and the Officer

In an ironic turn that underscores the pragmatic realities of the Mumbai underworld, Jenabai later went on to become a key khabri, or informer, for Bhesadia. After her arrest and a stint in jail, Jenabai realized that if she had to be a real player in the market, she would have to keep both the law enforcers and the ganglords happy. Her smuggling know-how made her a valuable informant, and at the time, informants were offered ten per cent of the total worth of the goods seized. Cunning as always, Jenabai did not stop her bootlegging and grain business even as she fed information to the police. Unconfirmed accounts state that after her arrest, Jenabai approached the then chief minister Yashwantrao Chavan with grievances of harassment by the Pydhonie and V.P. Road police, playing on her poverty, her children, and how she was trying to make ends meet; what transpired at that meeting is still unclear, but after it, Dongri's most fearless woman apparently moved on to become a police informant. The relationship between Bhesadia and Jenabai thus became a working alliance, a testament to how the lines between enforcement and crime blurred in the city.

Narrative Significance

The story of Bhesadia and Jenabai illustrates a central theme of the book: that crime was not only a way of transcending poverty and limitations but also a life-saving concept for these women, and that there is no simplistic cause-effect way of looking at their lives. The officer who once hunted the bootlegger came to rely on her, and the criminal who was once hunted came to profit from her connection to the law. This reversal is emblematic of the complex minds and psyches of women criminals that the book attempts to understand, women who were not blank slates written upon by dangerous male mafia members but active agents who pushed the boundaries of dominant moral codes. Bhesadia's career, built on the bust of Jenabai and sustained by her cooperation, stands as a quiet monument to that complexity.