Who was Jagga Gujjar?
Numerous trained criminals, including drug dealers, paid assassins, land speculators, extortionists, student leaders, and even some notorious in-service police officers wearing the uniform have terrorized the people of Lahore since 1947.
These individuals clearly benefited from political patronage and were shielded by the men whose voices were heard in positions of authority.
These infamous bandits have held multiple generations of common Lahorites captive since partition, first beneath the blades of their knives and then under the cover of highly developed automatic firearms.
Numerous people have been accountable for making city vendors’ life miserable by making unreasonable demands for extortion. Both the rich and the poor feared them.
Thus, hardly many of these offenders have passed away naturally.
While some of these “goondas,” who are thought to be the ones who first started this unrelenting outrage, have been killed in police contacts, both manufactured and real, others have perished in ferocious gang wars.
The city of Lahore actually turned into an incubator for criminals due to the lack of concentrated measures made at the state level over the past 70 years to contain these criminals involved in murders, attempted murders, extortion, land grabbing, drug trafficking, and kidnappings for ransom, among other crimes.
Many of these criminals increased in number simply because law enforcement officials failed to apprehend them in a timely manner.
Even when they were apprehended, some criminals managed to escape justice because police had purposefully filed cases that were insufficient and neglected to hold identification parades.
These criminal elements also had free reign since complainants gave up on the charges out of fear for their lives and witnesses frequently changed their statements under coercion.
Who was Jagga Gujjar?
General Muhammad Musa Khan Hazara (1908-1991), the country’s commander-in-chief, put into effect the infamous “Goonda Act” to pick up criminals wanted for terrible crimes in 1959, under President Ayub Khan’s administration.
One of the first victims of these encounters under the 1959 Goonda Act was Chaudhry Muhammad Sharif Gujjar alias Jagga Gujjar of Islamia Park Chowburji Lahore, who is remembered in underworld history for imposing the infamous “Jagga Tax” on the city’s Bakar Mandi (cattle market) in the late 1960s.
According to legend, Jagga Gujjar would receive one rupee from Bakar Mandi’s butchers for each goat that was to be butchered.
Jagga Gujjar, the son of Chaudhry Buddha Khan Raees Gujjar, was actually the first person detained following the Goonda Act’s implementation.
After being imprisoned, he was eventually slain by authorities, and his corpse was dumped in the Bakar Mandi neighbourhood.
Police also killed Kaka Lohar, a follower of Jagga.
It is said that the Lahoris were so fearful of Jagga Gujjar that the police decided to put Jagga’s dead body on exhibition in a chowk to confirm that the notorious Jagga has been finally killed.
Ironically, more than 80 years have been passed since his death but the word “Jagga Tax” is still used by mafia and gangsters’.
