Who was Baba Ladla?

KARACHI: Baba Ladla was known for playing football with the heads of his opponents--- long after he was done killing them.

Such was folklore in Lyari. Until the gruesome video of his rival gangster Arshad Pappu’s murder emerged in 2013. People who watched the gore realized that every bit of those rumours were true.

Baba Ladla was just a street name. In 1977 when he was born in Lyari’s Chakiwara area his parents named him Noor Muhammad.

Some say Baba Ladla joined Rehman Dakait’s gang-war group after failing to find a job—a route many young boys in Lyari have been forced to opt. Others deny this is why he took up crime.

In the late 80s, gangster and druglord Haji Lalu tutored his son Arshad Pappu, Abdur Rehman alias Rahman Dakait and Noor Muhammad alias Baba Ladla.

The three entered the murky underworld together, but in 1997 differences propped up between Haji Lalu and Rahman Dakait over a kidnapping incident. Haji Lalu and his son Arshad Pappu parted ways.  

After Rehman Dakait was killed on August 9, 2009, Baba Ladla became Lyari’s uncrowned king. His network of terror included kidnapping for ransom, extortion, target killing and drugs.

As Baba Ladla got stronger, Uzair Baloch of the banned Aman Committee took him under his support. Ladla helped make Uzair so powerful in Lyari that even the PPP had to cave in to his demands when the party wanted to nominate its candidates for the May 11 general elections. During this period rival gang leader Arshad Pappu was killed brutally. But after 2013, in the holy month of Ramzan a bomb blast during a football match, created fissures between Uzair Baloch and Baba Ladla.

After this Baba Ladla joined a gang run by Ghaffar Zikri and some gangsters from Arshad Pappu’s defunct gang.

Three characters played the central role in Lyari’s story: Uzair Baloch, Arshad Pappu and Baba Ladla. Their power had made the Lyari gangs a migraine for the law enforcement agencies.

With Ladla and Arshad Pappu dead, and Uzair safely tucked away in paramilitary custody—may be it's time residents in Lyari heave a sigh of relief.