The ‘femme fatale’ who made it her life’s mission to kill Dawood Ibrahim, infiltrated Mumbai underworld to take revenge | Trending

Dawood Ibrahim is one of the most infamous figures in India’s hory of organised crime, a man accused of orchestrating the devastating 1993 Bombay blasts and linked to global terror networks. The underworld boss, drug lord and terror made many enemies during his reign of terror over Mumbai, but one of his nemeses is a figure shrouded in mystery even today – Sapna Didi. Sapna Didi wanted to kill Dawood Ibrahim as revenge for her husband’s murder(Getty Image/File Photo) In his gripping work ‘Mafia Queens of Mumbai’, journal Hussain Zaidi gave us what little we know about Sapna Didi, a woman who made it her life’s mission to kill Dawood Ibrahim. Her motivation for taking on the underworld don? Revenge. Who was Sapna Didi?Among other things, Zaidi referred to Sapna Didi as “femme fatale” and “an avenging angel” in his book. He described her as a “strikingly attractive” woman who infiltrated the dark underbelly of Mumbai underworld in her quest for revenge. Most of his information came from Hussain Ustara, a Mumbai gangster who was known for his rivalry with Dawood Ibrahim. Sapna Didi was born the name of Ashraf in a conservative Muslim family in Mumbai. When she was still quite young, she met and married Mehmood Khan, a gangster. Ashraf was unaware of her husband’s links to the underworld. She saw him getting shot in front of her own eyes at the Mumbai airport after he returned from a trip to Dubai. It was the turning point in her life, a shock of massive proportions that left her heartbroken and yearning for answers. Ashraf later learnt that her husband had been murdered on the orders of Dawood Ibrahim, apparently because he refused to carry out one of the don’s orders. Fuelled this knowledge, Ashraf (who later adopted the name Sapna) decided to get revenge on the don. A quest for revengeAshraf approached gangster Hussain Ustara, who was known for his rivalry with Dawood Ibrahim. She wanted Ustara to teach her how to shoot, believing it would take something as simple as a gun to take down the leader of D-Company. Over several months, she developed a close friendship with Ustara. The two worked together to intercept several weapon consignments that the D-Company was sending into India through Nepal. Their mission was to hurt Dawood’s business in any way they could. During this time, Ashraf’s own personality also underwent a change. From a burqa-clad woman, she became “Sapna Didi” – a female gangster who wore jeans and shirts, rode a bike, and handled a gun with ease. “In Mumbai, Sapna was slowly gaining notice as the person responsible for disrupting Dawood’s businesses. She knew the Mumbai underworld like the back of her hand and was creating unprecedented fear in the minds of Dawood’s many henchmen. She had begun to play a big role in busting several gambling dens and dance bars in the city as well,” Hussain Zaidi wrote in ‘Mafia Queens of Mumbai.’ A plot gone wrongIn time, Sapna gained a number of young Muslim followers in whom she inculcated a hatred for Dawood Ibrahim. She came to be known as Sapna Didi to her followers. Although her relationship with Ustara soured over the course of time, she remained determined to take down Dawood Ibrahim. According to Hussain Zaidi, Sapna Didi made the audacious plan to kill Dawood during an India-Pakan cricket match in Sharjah during the early 1990s. The don would often watch these matches from the VIP enclosure – it was one of the few times he was spotted in public – and Sapna planned to murder him at the stadium amidst thousands of people. The ‘femme fatale’ sent several of her henchmen to scout the stadium and planned to station them around the VIP enclosure with makeshift weapons like umbrellas and broken bottles. At some point during the match, some of the men would attack Dawood’s men with these weapons and others would take on the don himself. Unfortunately for Sapna, this plan was leaked to Dawood Ibrahim before she could carry it out. In 1994, she was killed Dawood’s men in her Mumbai home. Sapna was stabbed 22 times inside her house, her screams falling on deaf ears as her neighbours were too scared to help her. She succumbed to her injuries before she could reach the hospital. Today, her name is known to few. Accounts of her audaciousness remain elusive. No known photograph of Sapna Didi exs.