Zende: hero of the hourInspector Madhukar Baburao Zende is a large man with a large voice. The day after he returned to Bombay with his trussed-up prize catch, he was booming out his thanks to a steady stream of visitors who came with bouquets to his ground-floor office in the Agripada police station.He is two years short of 50 but, apart from the streaks of grey in his hair, looks a vigorous 40. "All those snacks in restaurants in Goa waiting for Sobhraj to turn up have done my figure no good," he says ruefully, pulling out a bill from the O'Coqueiro restaurant which shows that he spent nearly Rs 100 on a gimlet and fish curry and rice.Zende has been with the force for 27 years and in his time has put people like Haji Mastan and Karim Lala behind bars. The first time he arrested Mastan was when the don had assaulted a constable in 1964. "That was the only case in which he was convicted," remembers Zende. He remembers with equal pride his going to the rescue of a constable who was being assaulted with knives by five taxi-passengers: that exploit earned him Rs 2,000 in award money. "I usually don't carry a gun so I just shouted at the top of my voice and grabbed two knives in both my hands. They got scared and gave up."Despite his tough-cop exterior, Zende is a kind-hearted man and ironically, it was this that led to his first arrest of Sobhraj in 1974. Ajay Mara was a small-time felon who, after a stint in jail, was advised by Zende to reform, advice which he disregarded. He met Sobhraj on the sands of Chowpatty beach one day and was asked, as a test, to put together a plan to rob the Air-India office. Pleased, Sobhraj took Ajay to Delhi: the young crook, however, lost his nerve, stole two pistols belonging to Sobhraj's gang and fled to Bombay, where he tried to sell the pistols on the sly. Unfortunately one of them went off, injuring a prospective customer in the chest, and Ajay thought it prudent to come clean with Zende. Says Zende tellingly: "Even when he knew that his protege had come back to Bombay, Sobhraj was stupid enough to return to carry out the Air-India crime." Tip followed tip and Sobhraj was held.Zende almost caught Sobhraj again in 1974, soon after he and a woman accomplice called Lilian had robbed J. Rocher, a French tourist staying at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay. The two were sitting in the Taj coffee shop when the manager entered, recognised them immediately, but gave the game away by rushing out to phone Zende. Sobhraj and Lilian rushed to the nearby Ritz Hotel and had piled their luggage in a car when the police arrived. Sobhraj escaped; Lilian was caught with such goodies as chocolate-covered bullets and a revolver in a powder tin. "I used to think Sobhraj was over-rated,"says Zende. "He isn't a particularly intelligent person if he keeps getting caught again and again."Earlier, the ubiquitous policeman had earned laurels when the then Gujarat director-general of police Julio Ribeiro had asked him to come to the state to find out if the Bombay underworld was spreading its tentacles there: someone had thrown a bomb at Ribeiro. Zende worked alone and incognito in Gujarat for a month and was pleased to inform Ribeiro that the Bombay underworld had not moved into the state. He says he is "not in the habit of asking for gifts for doing my duty," but could hardly turn down the Rs 15,000 he received as a reward for the Sobhraj capture..preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}Published By: AtMigration Published On: Apr 30, 1986--- ENDS ---
