Four decades apart, Dawood Ibrahim and Lawrence Bishnoi have been linked to Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Central Jail at crucial junctures in their criminal careers. In 1983, a bullet wound brought Dawood to Gujarat, where his arrest led to a battle over his detention and an alleged attempt on his life during a prison transfer.Since May 2023, Sabarmati has been Lawrence Bishnoi’s place of confinement as agencies pursue cases linked to his alleged criminal network. The prison offers a rare point of intersection between two generations of India’s underworld.Dawood’s Sabarmati jail stint is recounted by B V Kumar, then Gujarat’s Commissioner of Customs and later Director General of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), in his book DRI & The Dons: The Untold Stories.In June 1983, Dawood was returning to Bombay (now Mumbai) after travelling to Jam Salaya and Porbandar. He was travelling in a car belonging to Lallu Jogi Patel, driven by Patel’s driver, Gulab. Dawood sat in the front seat, with another Gujarat underworld figure, Haji Ismail, behind him.According to Kumar, the group spotted Alamzeb Pathan, a former associate of Dawood who had turned rival, approaching from the opposite direction. Ismail hurriedly tried to pull out his pistol. The weapon misfired. The bullet passed through Ismail’s left palm, went through the front seat and struck Dawood in the neck. Other accounts suggest that Alamzeb fired the shot that hit Dawood.The wound was superficial. Gulab drove the injured men to Sayaji Hospital in Baroda and left. The then Baroda Police Commissioner, P K Dutta, questioned Dawood after learning about the shooting.Kumar writes that Dawood orally admitted to doing “number two dhanda”, a euphemism for smuggling. Dawood denied that Alamzeb had shot him. His associates, too, maintained that the pistol had discharged accidentally.Story continues below this adThe Gujarat authorities were investigating a smuggling operation involving contraband reportedly worth nearly Rs 3 crore, in which Dawood was allegedly involved. They subsequently obtained a detention warrant against him under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA), which permits preventive detention to curb activities such as smuggling. Dawood was subsequently detained.Jethmalani’s interventionDawood challenged the detention, engaging senior advocate Ram Jethmalani to represent him.The matter came before the then Chief Justice, P D Desai. Kumar writes that the judge questioned the legality of preventive detention in the absence of tangible evidence and took strong exception to the circumstances in which Dawood had been detained.Interestingly, the authorities argued for Dawood’s continued detention, citing the threat to his life from his rivals. The court, however, ordered his release, with the qualification that he would be at liberty at his own risk unless detained under another law.Story continues below this adBut Dawood’s release did not follow immediately. The authorities approached the Gujarat government for a fresh detention order, under which Dawood was detained again and kept in Sabarmati Jail.An armed escort and an assassination attemptThe second spell of detention brought another threat to Dawood’s life.As he was being transferred from Sabarmati Jail to Baroda for a court hearing, the vehicle came under fire near Jamalpur Pagathia in Ahmedabad. According to accounts of the incident, Dawood was travelling in a private Fiat rather than a police van when Alamzeb and members of the gang led by Gujarat gangster Abdul Latif spotted him.The Fiat, which included a police escort, was waylaid in a crowded locality and firing ensued. Dawood survived, while two other men in the car were hit, according to former police commissioner Neeraj Kumar, who recounts the incident in his book Dial D for Don.Story continues below this adDawood survived the attack and spent some time in Sabarmati Jail before challenging his detention again. He was eventually released. B V Kumar describes it as one of the rare occasions on which the gangster was held in prison, albeit for a short period.He subsequently left for Dubai in 1984, never to come within the reach of Indian police again.