Stone Pelting at Ambivali railway station in Thane | Screengrab from instagram video/
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Who are the Iranis, some of whose members were arrested after they rioted and pelted stones at Ambivali railway station in Thane district on Wednesday evening, injuring policemen?
According to the police, the group was from Irani Basti, a settlement near the railway station. They had attacked the police to free a man from their locality who was detained for allegedly robbing gold chains. Police called the rioters members of the ‘Irani gang’.
The Maharashtra government included Iranis in the list of ‘Nomadic and Denotified Tribe’ in the early 2000s, making them eligible for quotas in government jobs and seats in educational institutions, said Shabbir Ansari, founder of All India Muslim OBC Organisation, a group formed after the Mandal Commission report to help backward Muslim groups to access the reservations
According to Ansari, the Iranis who are Shia Muslims, were earlier called Balochi, their origins traced to Balochistan, an ethno-linguistic area that straddles the Pakistan-Iran border. They spoke Balochi but now are fluent in Hindi or Marathi, said Ansari.
Not much is known about their migration to areas around Mumbai. They are believed to be members of a group that migrated in the 16th century. An Irani woman from Ambivali said that she has never seen Iran because seven generations of her family have lived here.
Police said they are involved in petty crime, with some young men from the community languishing in jails for months. Most of the cases are related to theft and robbery. “Iranis are active in Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai. Several cases of theft have been filed in Thane alone,” said a police official.
Retired police inspector Dinesh Katke said a majority of the Iranis did not hold formal jobs and were involved in chain snatching, theft, and cheating cases. Katke added that when police teams approach an Irani settlement, they have a modus operandi of attacking the police team. “In these attacks, the women and children come forward to stop police action. Police from other states have also alerted us about suspicious persons hiding in the Irani Basti,” said Katke.
Though the group now has preferential treatment for jobs and educational seats, the community remains poorly educated. “The biggest problem is the lack of education. Many of them work as police informants,” said a social worker.
Sandeep Rokade, a ward officer from the Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation, agreed. “During the election period, we held a meeting with them to raise awareness for the election in the locality and received good responses from them. However, there is a lack of education among them.”
Ansari said that the community largely lived in settlements near railway stations. There are localities in Ambivali, Kalyan, Mumbra, and Bhiwandi around Mumbai. Groups also live in Sangli, Parbhani, Pune, and Satara. Over 40 families with 400 members live in Ambivali, a town in Kalyan taluka of Thane. Dashrath Tare, a local ex-corporator from Ambivali, said the group had arrived in Vasind in Shahapur taluka and Ambivali 50 years ago. “However, they left Vasind. In Ambivli they set up bamboo tents near the railway station. Over the following few years, they built permanent structures. They are all voters now,” said Tare.
Sanjay Jadhav, current additional commissioner of Kalyan division, mentioned that when he was DCP of Kalyan in 2015, he held a meeting with community leaders at their mosque. “Many children were admitted to civic schools while the youth received vocational training. Many got jobs and incidents of chain snatching dropped after some time,” said Jadhav.
The Iranis resent the ‘criminal’ tag given by the police. An Irani woman who the reporter spoke to blamed the police for falsely implicating her community members in the case. An Irani man from Ambivli said that the community is always blamed for all chain snatching incidents in Kalyan, Ulhasnagar and other cities. “The police always feel that the crime might have been committed by Iranis,” said the man, accusing the police of targeting the group when any crime happens in the area.
Cases reported
1. April 10, 2019: 10 policemen from the Bandra police station entered Irani’s Ambivali home, a mob of 21, including women, pelted them with stones and drove them out, critically injuring one cop. In the ensuing chaos, the accused fled.
2. November 9, 2023: A joint team of 15 personnel from Andheri and Khadakpada police stations were assaulted by a mob in Ambivali in the early hours of the day when they went to arrest a suspected chain snatcher. It later emerged that he was part of a gang planning robbery during Diwali. Four policemen were injured after being attacked by the mob. The mob pelted stones and attacked the police with sticks. One person was arrested and the others are still at large.
3. February 4, 2024: Mira-Bhayandar Crime Branch police team approached Irani Basti in Kalyan, and three policemen were injured after a group of Iranis attacked them by hurling stones.
4. December 4, 2024: Policemen, including an Assistant Police Inspector from the Mumbai Police, suffered injuries after a group of 20 Iranis attacked them by pelting stones in the premises of Ambivali railway station on Wednesday night. The police had come to Irani Basti, located near Ambivali railway station, to catch a suspected 20-year-old chain snatcher.
