A once fierce underworld don, Muthappa Rai died early on Friday at Bengaluru. He has suffered from brain cancer for two years and was admitted to Manipal hospital on April 30, after his condition worsened and died at 2 am today, failing to respond to medicines and treatment. His funeral will be carried out in the presence of his family members and close associates not exceeding more than 20 members.
Rai was once closely associated with Sharad Shetty, the right-hand man of underworld king Dawood Ibrahim. After Shetty was killed in 2000, Rai changed his operations to Dubai and was later extradited to India in 2002, on several criminal offenses.
Muthappa Rai was a graduate in commerce and was a former staff at Vijay Bank. He gradually turned to an underground don first by doing dirty businesses after beginning a chain of dance bars and restaurants along with his wife Rekha. Rai later reformed himself to become a social activist and formed ‘Jaya Karnataka’, In the last 15 years, he had also donned the role of a Kannada activist by launching an outfit called “Jaya Karnataka”. The organization was a regular feature at usual protests in Bengaluru city. Many of its activists were into small-time extortion.
Rai, according to his own claims had assisted in the espionage missions of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)in Afghanistan and is considered acquitted of his crimes as a collateral deal.
Before getting diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018, Rai had also accomplished his long term wish of acting in movies. He acted in a Tulu movie Kanchilda Bale and even Bollywood director Ram Gopal Verma had announced a movie named ‘Rai’ based on his true life story featuring Vivek Oberoi in the title role.
Meanwhile, Ajith Jayraj the son of Bangalore mafia don Jayaraj had posted a sarcastic message mocking the death of Rai. Jayaraj who contested in elections was slain by Rai, during the assembly elections of 1989
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