Manya Surve

Manya
Mugshot of Manya Surve
Born	Manohar Arjun Surve 1944
Died	11 January 1982 (aged 37–38) Manor Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Nationality	Indian
Other names	Manya Surve
Occupation	Dacoit, gangster

Manohar Arjun Surve, popularly known as Manya Surve (1944 – 11 January 1982), was an infamous Indian urban dacoit and gangster in the Mumbai underworld. His death in 1982 during an encounter with the Maharashtra police became known as the city's first recorded encounter killing.^[1][2]

Early years

Born in 1944, Manya Surve moved to Mumbai with his mother and stepfather. He was a B. A. graduate passed with 78% distinction from Kirti College, Dadar and formed a gang of students during his years there, due to the influence of his stepbrother Bhargav Dada. Bhargav was a feared thug from Agar Bazar in Dadar. He also won "Mumbai Shree" title in Body Building. In 1969, Surve was involved in the murder of a man named Dandekar, with him and an associate, Manya Podhkar. The trio were soon arrested by Police Inspector E.S. Dabholkar and were subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment.

Imprisonment and escape

While incarcerated at the Yerwada Central Jail in Pune, Manya Surve developed a fierce rivalry with another gangster, Suhas Bhatkar a.k.a. "Potya Bhai". Annoyed by Surve's terror tactics, the prison authorities had him transferred to Ratnagiri jail. There, he took part in a hunger strike and lost almost 30 kg, before being shifted to the local civil hospital. Surve utilised this opportunity to successfully evade custody on 14 November 1979, and returned to Mumbai, having served over nine years of his sentence.^[3]

He has a highly educated family who are living in London hayes middlesex, that came to the opening of the film "shootout at wadala" on the 12 January 2013.

Police crackdown

The gang's successful heists and robberies brought a tremendous amount of heat on Manya Surve and his gang. As a result, the police were put under great pressure and they launched Operation Manya Surve to capture Surve and curb his gang's activities.

On 22 June 1981, Sheikh Munir was picked up from a chemical company near Kalyan. A few days later, Dayanand Shetty and Parshuram Katkar were arrested at a lodge in Goregoan. Anticipating his capture, Surve slipped into an aide's hideout in Bhiwandi on 19 November 1981. When police squads finally broke into the apartment, they recovered a hand grenade, a country-made revolver and some live ammunition.

Surve was finished after systematic police operations led to a breakdown of his gang's activities. After the arrest of his cohort Uday Shetty, he was the only remaining member of the gang who was not in prison.

Encounter

On 11 Jan 1982, Mumbai police received a tip off from Varadarajan Mudaliar^{[citation needed]} that Manya Surve would be arriving at a garden near the Ambedkar College junction in Wadala in a taxi. At around 12.30 pm, 18 Crime Branch officers split into three crack teams and waited for him to arrive. After twenty minutes, Surve was spotted coming out a taxi to pick up his girlfriend, Vidya with two children.

After noticing the squad closed in and took positions, Surve took out his Mauser pistol. However, before he could squeeze the trigger, Surve was mortally wounded by two police officers Raja Tambat and Isaque Bagwan, who fired twenty five bullets into his chest and shoulder but he was alive.

Surve was dragged from the scene and put on an ambulance. While on the way to SION Hospital, he kept crying and whining that the police had not given him a fair chance to defend himself and he spit on face of one of the officer. He succumbed to his injuries a few minutes later. This encounter was the end of Surve's two-year spree of urban dacoity and crime. It is generally believed that it was the underworld don Varadarajan Mudaliar who tipped off the police about his whereabouts, after finding his position being challenged by Surve.^{[citation needed]}

A former Crime Branch officer points out that police operations in the past were fewer. But inexperience notwithstanding, Bagwan's team methodically isolated Surve from his associates before closing in. Bagwan later eliminated Surve's key associate Sheikh Munir at Versova in February 1983. Munir had crossed swords with Tamil don Vardharajan Mudaliar alias Vardhabhai in Dharavi and wanted to corner the lion's share of the income from the illicit liquor trade. ^[4]

In Popular Culture

Manya Surve was played by Bollywood actor John Abraham in the Bollywood Film 'Shootout at Wadala' based loosely on Surve's life.

References