Bengaluru: Former underworld don Muthappa Rai (68), who had turned a social activist in the recent years, passed away in the wee hours of today at Manipal Hospital in Bengaluru. He was suffering from cancer and was hospitalised for the past few days.

He had recently held a press conference where he talked about his ill health and described himself as “a dying man.” 

He leaves behind his wife Anuradha, sons Rickey and Rocky and a host of relatives and friends. Last rites were held at his farm house in Bidadi, according to sources. Due to restrictions imposed to curtail the spread of COVID-19, only his family members participated.

Rai had presided over underworld in Mangaluru and Bengaluru for over 30 years and he was sophisticated, educated and charming. Unlike his predecessors M.P. Jairaj and Kothwal Ramachandra, Rai was from a good family background near Mangaluru.

A commerce graduate, he had started his career as an officer at Public Sector Undertaking Vijaya Bank and was a shy man. In the late 1980s, Rai came in contact with Bengaluru’s underworld and became an overnight sensation after he bumped off the then don of Bengaluru, MP Jairaj, in broad daylight in 1990. That murder elevated him to the “post” of a mafia boss and he never looked back.

Surviving two serious attempts on his life, Rai managed to consolidate his hold over the land mafia of Bengaluru which was witnessing a huge boom in real estate post-economic liberalisation of 1991. There was also an attempt on his life at a city court in Bengaluru, when he was brought there for a routine appearance. Five bullets hit him, but he survived.

In 1994, during Karnataka Assembly elections, a Youth Congress leader Jayanth Rai was shot dead at his office in Puttur. That murder shook the State, which was not known for political killings. He was Muthappa Rai’s right-hand man. That incident shook Rai and he moved all his activities to Bengaluru after that.

Rai fled to Dubai in 1996. Though he was then helped by Dawood Ibrahim, he slowly gravitated towards the “Hindu faction” and reportedly helped Indian security agencies fight Dawood Ibrahim’s faction, intelligence sources said.

Muthappa Rai was engaged in a pitched battle with another mafia man Sridhar in the 1990s in Bengaluru. There was an attempt on Sridhar’s life, in which his driver got killed. A “reformed” Sridhar now runs a Kannada tabloid “Agni” and is in the film-making business.

He was arrested and extradited to Bengaluru by Dubai authorities in 2002 where he stood trial for a total of eight cases including the murder of builder Subbaraju in 2001. However, he was eventually acquitted of all charges for want of evidence.

In 2008, Muthappa announced he was turning a new leaf and started Kannada organisation “Jaya Karnataka”. Living in a heavily guarded palatial house in Bidadi, Muthappa Rai described himself as a businessman involved in the real estate sector. He was elected Chairperson of Karnataka Athletics Association in 2018.

There has been no case against him alleging any criminal activity since he returned to India extradited from Dubai in 2002. Though there were reports of his keenness to enter the political fray, it never materialised. Rai used to claim that he had helped India’s external espionage agency Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) in Afghanistan and he was given safe passage back home because of that.