The Sapna killings and the framing of Madjid

The Sapna killings and the framing of Madjid are presented as a calculated operation by Abdul Ghani, not simply a campaign by an unknown gang. By cultivating fear of Sapna, Ghani sought to make police, politicians, and rival councils cooperate with Khader Khan’s organization; when the killings threatened to lead back to the council, Ghani arranged for Madjid to be framed. The revelation recasts the citywide search for Sapna as a struggle over who could direct the violence and control what others believed about it.

Origins and Political Purpose

In Nazeer’s retrospective account, translated freely into English by Sanjay Kumar, Ghani had spent a long time fearing that Khader Khan was losing his grip on the organization’s business, money, and standing on the council. Khader, Ghani believed, was devoting too much attention to Afghanistan and the war, while also planning missions in Sri Lanka and Nigeria. Ghani could not persuade him to change course. Salman Mustaan later adds that Ghani had spoken about the hero curse for roughly a year before deciding to create Sapna, placing the operation after a period of unresolved concern rather than presenting it as an impulsive scheme.

The distinction between the two men’s roles is important. Both Khader Khan and Abdul Ghani used the Sapna crisis to obtain cooperation from police and government, but Ghani was in charge of the operation. Its killings, accompanied by talk of revolution and Sapna’s supposed stature as a king of thieves, made the identity of the enemy uncertain and the threat seem shared. People who ordinarily opposed Khader Khan’s council then had a reason to help it, including by facilitating the movement of guns and explosives through Bombay, in return for assistance in finding and stopping Sapna. A concealed factional project thus produced an outward appearance of common cause.

Escalation and the False Trail

The operation also served more immediate criminal purposes. Ghani commanded a separate gang whose members answered to him alone. Many of the people targeted in the killings were, according to Sanjay’s account, already people Ghani wanted removed for business reasons. The manufactured hunt therefore did double work: it redirected attention toward a supposed threat to the whole city while allowing Ghani’s men to pursue their own ends. The resulting cooperation with Khader’s traditional enemies helped keep the scheme functioning even as the violence intensified.

The danger of exposure arose when Sub-Inspector Suresh Patil told Ghani that investigators had found a clue at the latest murder scene leading back to Khader Khan’s council. Ghani recognized that the trail could bring the operation to the council itself. His answer was to make the appearance of hostility more convincing: someone from within the council would be presented as a victim of Sapna. He chose Madjid, whose closeness to Khader Khan made the choice particularly useful. If the police saw a member of Khader’s own circle apparently attacked by Sapna, they could be led to treat Sapna as the council’s enemy rather than as a cover for Ghani’s operation.

The framing worked, at least in the immediate investigation. Patil was in charge of the case and knew how close Madjid had been to Khader Khan. The account also notes that Patil’s father had a history with Khader Khan and had once put him in jail. This family connection does not establish the father’s role in the case, but it underscores how personal histories and police knowledge overlapped with the criminal council’s affairs. Madjid’s apparent victimhood gave the false trail credibility precisely because his relationship to Khader Khan was known.

Jeetendra and the Operation’s Exposure

Salman Mustaan’s account adds a further measure of Ghani’s methods. Ghani had brought Jeetendra, known as Jeetudada, from the Delhi area along with four other men. They were kept in five-star hotels for two years, an expense that sharply contrasted with Ghani’s complaints that Khader Khan was spending too much on the Afghan war and the mujaheddin. The contrast exposes the self-interest behind Ghani’s stated concern about resources: while criticizing Khader’s commitments, he was maintaining his own operatives at considerable expense.

Jeetendra’s role became harder to conceal after Abdullah was killed and people were saying Sapna was dead. Drunk at a bar in the President Hotel, Jeetendra began telling others that he was the real Sapna and said he was prepared to disclose who was behind the killings, who had planned them, and who had paid for them. Most of the patrons were foreigners and did not understand what he was talking about. One of Ghani’s associates did understand enough to tell him to stop. Jeetendra then declared that he was not afraid of Khader Khan, threatened Khader, and waved a gun, turning a covert operation into an immediate danger to the people implicated in it.

The associate contacted Khader Khan, who went to deal with the threat himself, accompanied by Nazeer, Khaled Ansari, Farid, Ahmed Zadeh, the young Andrew Ferreira, and others. The account establishes Khader’s personal intervention and identifies those who went with him, but does not specify the outcome of that confrontation. Its place in the revelation is clear nonetheless: the plan that had drawn enemies into cooperation and hidden Ghani’s independent gang was vulnerable to disclosure by one of the very men Ghani had retained.

Revelation and Narrative Significance

The account changes the meaning of both Sapna’s public image and Madjid’s death. Sapna’s apparent revolutionary campaign had been used as a screen for factional maneuvering, while the supposed evidence of a conflict between Sapna and Khader Khan’s council had itself been arranged. Ghani’s plan depended on shaping appearances: a feared common enemy could induce cooperation, and a framed council member could make that enemy appear separate from the council. The same strategy that extended Ghani’s influence also placed his operation at risk once a clue, an investigator, or a talkative operative disrupted the cover.

Because these facts emerge through Nazeer’s account as translated by Sanjay Kumar, and are supplemented by Salman Mustaan, the event reaches the reader as a reconstructed explanation rather than as a scene witnessed directly. That layered telling clarifies the divisions behind the Sapna operation: Khader Khan and Ghani could exploit the same crisis for shared leverage while disagreeing over priorities and control. Madjid’s framing is the decisive proof of Ghani’s reach within the council, but Jeetendra’s threatened disclosure reveals its limit. The operation could manipulate alliances and appearances; it could not guarantee silence from everyone who knew how it had been built.