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The gift-turned-activist succumbed to cancer after a yearlong battle.
Bengaluru’s former underworld gifted as an activist and Jaya Karnataka founder Muthappa Rai passed away on Friday morning after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 68 years old. Muthappa Rai had suffered from brain cancer in the past year. He was admitted to the Manipal Hospital in Bangalore on April 30, according to hospital officials.
“After a prolonged illness and hospitalization, we regret to report the disappearance of Mr. Muthappa Rai, 68 years old. He last breathed at 1.43 a.m. Manipal Hospitals expresses its condolences to all his family in this moment of pain, “said a hospital spokesman.
The police had interviewed Muthappa Rai on April 15 at his residence in Bidadi, after Ravi Pujari’s extradition, since he was also ill at the time.
Muthappa Rai was interviewed in connection with the 2001 murder of a builder in Bangalore.
Rai had started his professional career as an employee at Banco Vijaya. Later in his life, he came to Bangalore to start his own business, and had apparently committed a crime to protect his business interests.
He was also held infamously responsible for the murder of Bengaluru don MP Jayaraj in 1990, which supposedly marked his entry into the underworld. His rise in the criminal world subsequently even took him to Mumbai, where he was linked to Dawood Ibrahim.
In 2002 Rai was deported to India from the United Arab Emirates. Upon arrival, several investigative agencies questioned him, such as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Investigation and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the Intelligence Office (IB), and the Karnataka police. He was later acquitted due to lack of evidence.
He is survived by a wife and two children. The last rites are reportedly to take place on Friday afternoon in Bidadi.
Assassination of MP Jayaraj
In 1989, Bengaluru’s underworld, Don MP Jayaraj, had become a feared personality in public and among police circles. Muttappa Rai, who had established contacts with the Dawood Ibrahim gang in Mumbai, was the person with various vested interests and approached him in an attempt to kill Jayaraj. For a tough gift like Jayaraj, being too cautious was not a new thing. Then it fell on Muttappa Rai’s shoulders to kill Jayaraj. Rai had decided that the machetes and knives used by men in the city’s underworld would not be enough to kill Jayaraj, who by then had become one of the most feared people in Bangalore.
The first attempt on Jayaraj’s life was made outside of Mysuru prison. It was because of this assassination attempt that several prominent gangsters like Oil Kumar and Bekkinakannu Rajendra teamed up to help Rai. While Oil Kumar financed the plan, it was Bekkina Kannu Rajendra who fired a weapon at Jayaraj. Rai has used the money provided by Oil Kumar to buy weapons from his contacts in Bombay.
The weapons were new to Bangalore, and Rajendra, who had no experience firing the weapon, did not hit her target. Despite the fact that nine people surrounded Jayaraj, the fear he had instilled in the minds of his fellow gangsters had hampered the execution of the assassination attempt.
Rai was again entrusted with the task of killing Jayaraj, this time when the gift was admitted to the KR Hospital in Mysuru. Surprisingly for Rai, Jayaraj learned of the plan to kill him and had crude bombs on hand when the gang of men entered the room to kill him. Jayaraj threw the crude bombs at his attackers and escaped.
However, in November 1989, when Jayaraj secured bail and was released from prison, Muttappa Rai planned to kill him during his daily visit to the Siddapura police station.
The murder was carried out after Muttappa Rai hired sharp shooters from the Mumbai underworld. Jayaraj, who was traveling in an ambassador car, was shot near Lalbagh. His lawyer Vardhamanya was shot and killed first. Although Jayaraj used Vardhamanya’s body as a shield, several bullets killed him. Her brother, who was in the back seat of the Ambassador’s car, was the only one to survive the attack.
The bloody murder of Bengaluru’s gift in broad daylight made Muttappa Rai one of the most feared people in the city’s underworld. By killing Jayaraj, he rose to the don position.
Foundation of Jaya Karnataka and later life.
In the early 2000s, after an alleged attempt on his life in which his driver, Rai, who had apparently shelved his gangster past, died, he created a social services organization, Jaya Karnataka. According to Jaya Karnataka’s Facebook page, the organization “aims to improve the quality of life for the people of Karnataka. A truly democratic and non-political organization that originated in response to the increasing problems of the people of this state “
It had made the headlines in 2018 when he was holding an Ayudha pooja for his weapons – a display of pistols, knives, and machetes, resulting in the Central Crime Office sending him an on-screen notice.
In 2013 director Ram Gopal Verma met Muthappa Rai for a whole day and apparently decided to do an Indian version of “The Godfather” with the story of Muthappa Rai in the center. However, the film has not seen the light of day, despite the fact that Vivek Oberoi was chosen to play Muthappa Rai in this film.
Rai appeared in the Tulu film Kanchilda Baale in 2011 and in the Kannada Katari Veera Surasundarangi film in 2012.
With contributions from Theja Ram
With PTI inputs
.
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