A 33-year-old real estate entrepreneur named suresh Narsinh Dube was shot at the Nalasopara train station at 10.30 am on october 9, 1989.
 
The Thakur family's hold over the sociopolitical landscape of the Vasai-Virar area, which is situated at the northernmost extremity of the mumbai Metropolitan Region, is thought to have been cemented by this murder. Hitendra Thakur, the head of the Thakur dynasty, has suffered his first political setback at the hands of sneha Dube Pandit, a 38-year-old relative of the late suresh Dube, over 35 years later.
 
In addition to upsetting Hitendra Thakur, Sneha's 3,153-vote victory in Vasai made it the first time since 1990 that no Thakur family member had a seat in the maharashtra State Assembly. The Thakur family's decades-long hegemony over the area is thought to have been severely damaged by this change. In Palghar district, the semi-urban communities of Virar, Vasai, and Nalasopara are heavily influenced by the Bahujan Vanchit Aghadi (BVA), which is led by Hitendra Thakur, the family patriarch and six-time Vasai MLA.
 
Nearly every local company is impacted by the Thakur family's wide-ranging commercial activities, which further solidifies their hold on the region.
 
Jayendra Thakur, often referred to as Bhai Thakur established the Thakurs' long-standing dominance as the Vasai-Virar belt's ruling family. Once a peaceful, rural community, the Vasai-Virar area was rapidly changing in the late 1980s as Bombay's growing population started to encroach on the coastal belt.
 
Real estate activity soared as a result of this rapid urbanization, making building and land development extremely profitable ventures. But criminal acts like land-grabbing and the forceful acquisition of properties also increased as a result of this boom. Three significant gangs were involved, according to police documents from that period: the suresh Dube gang, the Bhai Thakur gang, and the Manik Patil gang. In the late 1980s, the Dube brothers, especially shyam Sundar Dube and suresh Dube, turned their attention away from illicit operations and toward the respectable fields of land development and construction, while the Thakur and Manik Patil gangs allied.

In october 1989, a land sale in Achole village caused tensions between the Thakurs and the Dubes to rise. A police chargesheet claims that the Dubes bought a piece of land that the Thakurs wanted. Bhai Thakur, his brother Hitendra Thakur, and several colleagues were in the Thakur family's office when suresh Dube and Dr. Omprakash Dube came.
 
The Thakurs insisted during the meeting that the Dubes pay a "hafta" (protection money) and give up the land.
 
"Suresh Dube was even threatened and warned that if he did not comply with that demand and took any other action, then the members of his family shall have to perform 'aarti' of his photo within a short time," according to the charge sheet.
 
The Thakurs reportedly recruited the Manik Patil gang to carry out the murder, according to police, who think this altercation resulted in a plot to kill suresh Dube. suresh Dube and his brother-in-law, amarnath Tripathi, were shot dead by Manik Patil gang members on october 9, 1989, when they were at Nalasopara station.
 
Following an inquiry by the Palghar police, Patrick Frances Truskar and Ananda Ramachandra Patil were apprehended and found guilty of the murder. Nonetheless, there were allegations that the Dube family was under pressure from the authorities to keep the Thakur family anonymous about the crime.
 
The charges were brought against the two defendants, and the thane sessions court tried them. However, when both defendants were freed on bond and the police made no serious attempts to obtain warrants to ensure their appearance in court, the case came to a standstill.
 
 
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Sneha Dube

SIBY JEYYA

02/12/2024 11:12 AM