Rehman Baloch, widely known as Rehman Dakait, was a notorious gangster who dominated the criminal underworld of Lyari, Karachi, a town historically plagued by gang warfare and political turbulence.
Born around 1975, his entry into crime was precocious, with reports claiming he stabbed a man at the age of 13. His early life was marked by extreme violence, including the alleged murder of his own mother, Khadija Bibi, inside their home, a crime he committed when he was around 15.
While he reportedly told the police his motive was her becoming a police informant, it is also widely believed he suspected she was in a relationship with a rival gang member.
Following a brief arrest in 1995 and subsequent escape, Rehman Dakait began consolidating his power. By the early 2000s, after taking over the gang leadership from the arrested Haji Laloo, he rose to become the self-appointed ‘king’ of Lyari as he decimated rivals, most notably in a prolonged and bloody turf war with the gang of Arshad Pappu.
Rehman’s criminal empire, which was involved in drug smuggling, extortion, kidnapping, and the sale of illegal arms, paralyzed life in Lyari for nearly a decade. Despite his brutal reputation, he also dabbled in welfare activities and founded the People’s Action Committee (PAC), an organization that later became a major force in the region’s complex nexus of crime and politics, and was also seen by some as a local “savior” or “Robinhood” figure.
Rehman Dakait’s reign ended on August 9, 2009, when he was killed in a police encounter in Karachi, along with three of his accomplices. The operation was led by the controversial and formidable Pakistani police officer SP Chaudhry Aslam Khan, whose efforts were aimed at cleaning Lyari of its gangs.
The encounter itself was mired in controversy, with Rehman’s widow and others claiming it was a fake encounter. Post-mortem reports were also cited, which allegedly suggested Rehman was shot from a close range, fueling the suspicions around the killing.
After the encounter, the leadership of the Peoples’ Aman Committee was taken over by his first cousin and partner in crime, Uzair Baloch. Uzair continued the gang’s operations, intensifying the rivalry with Arshad Pappu’s faction, which culminated in extreme brutality, including the kidnapping and murder of Pappu and his brother.
The gang warfare in Lyari, however, eventually became the focus of major police and Sindh Rangers operations starting around 2012, which sought to dismantle the gang networks. This targeted effort, which included the arrest and killing of many gang leaders like Uzair Baloch, gradually led to an eighty percent drop in the crime rate, though small-scale violence and conflicts continue to persist in the area.
The police officer responsible for the encounter, Chaudhry Aslam, would later be killed in a Taliban suicide attack in 2014. Rehman Dakait’s turbulent life and death, particularly his ruthless rise to power and the resulting gang wars, served as the inspiration for the Bollywood film Dhurandhar, in which the character is portrayed by Akshaye Khanna.
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