Who were the Truckanwalas and how did their criminal enterprise get three generations murdered?

When the first shot rang out, most people thought it was fireworks. By the time the assassin’s fourth bullet thumped into Ameer Balaj Tipu there was pandemonium. One can only wonder what thoughts were going through the young crime boss’ mind as he slumped to the floor in the middle of a wedding. 

Was he thinking of his father? How Tipu Truckanwala, famous for his booming laugh, love of pet lions, and steely gaze, was chased around the parking structure of Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport before being gunned down in a hail of bullets? Did he think of how his father lay lifeless but breathing for two days at Mayo Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit despite six bullets inside him; the two dozen bottles of blood given to him by the doctors all in vain? 

Perhaps he thought even further back, to the murder of his indomitable grandfather Billa Truckanwala. How the gigantic man from Ichraa had been gunned down near his Dera in the walled city whilst exiting his local masjid after the fajar prayer. Maybe the young Balaj wished that his turn had come at a similarly pious moment. 

Or perhaps his final considerations in life were about the future. Were his two infant sons on his mind as he lay dying in a pool of blood? Did he wonder if years from now they would meet the same fate? The dying musings of Balaj Tipu will forever remain between him and his maker. By all accounts, the young scion of Lahore’s most famous crime family succumbed to the bullets without uttering any final words. 

The days since his murder have been marked by an eerie silence completely different from his father and his grandfather before him. No sprees of revenge shootings have been reported, and a blanket of silence has fallen over Lahore’s underworld. It is perhaps testament to the changing nature of criminal enterprise. After all, blood feuds are exhausting and expensive, and even gangsters have to worry about their bottom lines. But could this simply be the calm before the storm? 

Already Balaj’s younger brother Musab has taken over the family’s Dera in the Walled City where lions roam freely. For three generations this Dera has served as sanctuary, courtroom, prison, and home all wrapped into one for the damned, the wicked, and the undesirables of Lahore. But perhaps more than anything else, it has also been a hub of business ranging from transport to security and extortion. Inextricably tied with this business of crime is a network of bureaucrats, senior police officers, and politicians that have at different points given this family their patronage.

To understand this web of violence, malfeasance, and blood rivalry we must go back to the very beginning. As far back as the birth of Pakistan, when Billa Truckanwala was what his name suggested — an up-and-comer in the transport business.

What in the truck? 

The partition came and went for the Truckanwals rather uneventfully. Of course, in 1947 the “Truckanwala” moniker was still quite new. This was one of the many Kashmiri families that had made the walled city of Lahore their home. The Truckanwals were a family of pehalwans — traditional akhara wrestlers that wowed audiences with their might and rigorous training. 

Billas’s father was one such wrestler and had trained his son in the art too. He was of the family of the Great Gama, and was as such also a relative of the family of Kulsoom Nawaz who would go on to be the wife of Mian Nawaz Sharif and first lady of Pakistan three times. But the tradition of wrestling was already on the wane by the time of partition. The sport had historically been alive through the patronage of Kings, Nawabs, and the aristocratic class of the Punjab. In Lahore, the Pehalwans of the Akharas had long turned to becoming enforcers and bone-breakers for loan-sharks and businessmen in the Androon. 

Billa had cut his teeth as a wrestler, and had found good work as one of a muscleman. But his ambition dictated that he find a business of his own. As a young man, he shadowed a number of transporters and learned the networks of roads that were the lifeline of the domestic trade supply chain for Pakistan. Eventually, he began running his own transport routes. Transport is perhaps one of the harshest businesses there is. Rivalries for control of routes are hotly contested and “addas” are fiercely guarded. New entrants into the business are often bullied and harangued with very little intervention available on a government level. 

But Billa was not above getting his hands dirty. Big, burly, powerful and backed by a family of Kashmiri Pehalwans, Billa ran a successful goods transport business, managing a fleet of over three hundred trucks nationwide. Existing players in the market quickly made way for him after he gained a reputation for talking with his fists as much as with his tongue. This is where Billa, whose father had first named him Ameer ud Din, first became known as “Billa Truckanwala”. And as the business grew, the newly Christened Billa Truckanwala needed a headquarters for his enterprise. 

The Dera

The Dera of the Truckanwala family is hiding in plain sight. One only has to find the initial turn at Bansnawala Bazaar at Shah Alam Chowk (known to Lahoris as ‘Shalmi market’) and walk a straight path down this road towards Gawalmandi. This is at the intersection between Mayo Hospital and Food Street — the heart of what would eventually become the traditional garh of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N). It is here through narrow winding streets that one approaches the Dera. 

At the time, it was a large shady area with a house towards the back and a vast space that could accommodate large gatherings. In the initial days, it served as a sort of aram gah for Billa’s drivers and business associates. Cups of tea (and other drinks) would flow freely, food was always available, hookahs blew like chimneys and in the centre of it all would sit Billa, resplendent on his colourful charpai with his iconic dhotis. In later years, he would start donning a prayer hat. 

But the Dera served many functions. As a man of significant influence and sway in the region, Billa was often approached with pleas. Shopkeepers in the adjoining markets would come to him to settle disputes. At the time, the police were not where you went with your problems. You went to Billa. Your tenant isn’t paying his rent? Go to Billa and he will summon the shopkeeper and have him pay it. Your mamu isn’t giving your mother’s portion of the inheritance? Billa would have a word. Two neighbours are having a spat over some shared courtyard space? Billa would known exactly whose father had bought the property and how much of it belonged to who better than any Patwari of Tehsildar in the country. 

The Dera was equal parts headquarters and courtroom for Billa Truckanwala. For decades he operated from here as judge, jury, and when required executioner. Of course, he did not do this entirely out of the goodness of his heart. Billa was a businessman after all. And there was a small economy built around his Dera. 

There are a few sources of revenue available in criminal enterprises of this nature. Billa’s were actually quite defined:

• The trucking business he had established for himself with hundreds of trucks which eventually became thousands. With an iron fist, Billa controlled his trade routes and was the man for the job for anyone that wanted their goods moved from one place to another with the assurance that they would get from Point A to Point B without any security concerns. 
• Billa was also a property owner. He had shops and other small businesses set up all around the Shah Alam Gate and the Ichraa Bazaar. This not just brought him revenue but also planted him well into the markets. With his family members installed in these positions, Billa knew exactly what was going on and who, if anyone, dared to challenge his authority. 
• Billa also provided arbitration services. Businessmen and residents alike came to him to help settle disputes. His dispensation of justice came at a small commission, and if Billa ever helped you, you’d be indebted to him forever. 
• And then there was the classic source of revenue: Extortion. Billa and others like him call it protection money. Shopkeepers murmur the word “Bhatta” under their breaths. Everyone accepted the reality that to conduct business in peace, giving Billa his pound of flesh was the easiest way to go about things. 

Of course the Dera did not operate in a vacuum. Where Billa was terrifying and dangerous, he was also charming and magnanimous. It is a painfully typical quality  for crime bosses to have. It was not just gangsters and transporters that frequented Billa’s Dera. The police would often come to him for leads, tips, assistance, and yes, for bribes. At the same time, Billa was making political connections. Through his blood ties with Kulsoom Nawaz, he became an important campaigner for the then up-and-coming Mian Nawaz Sharif. The Kashmiri biradri in Androon was stronger than ever and Billa was one of its most illustrious sons. 

By the mid 1970s, Billa’s Dera was a sight to be seen and it was very much a family affair. Billa’s son Tipu was his right-hand man, with father and son running the business side by side. But as Billa’s influence grew, so did the number of his enemies. Those unhappy with Billa’s power and his dispensation of justice were becoming vocal with their complaints. But there was more than one Truckanwala in town now. Billa’s son, Tipu, was far more aggressive and decisive than his older, more measured father. He had grown up entirely in the business of crime surrounded by his father’s henchmen. It would be Tipu who took things to the next level.   

Billa’s business

Things changed after Tipu joined the family business. For starters, lions began roaming the Dera. In his time as crime boss and transporter Billa had made a lot of money. His son had expensive tastes, one of which was exotic animals. The lions changed the entire atmosphere of the Truckanwala business. And as per those close to Tipu, it was a very deliberate choice. 

“When a person would come to the Dera now they would sit in front of either Billa or Tipu whoever was holding court that day. The lions, which Tipu had personally tamed himself, would circle the plaintiff. This was enough to strike fear into the hearts of any that might dare come to the Truckanwalas.”

The business was fast becoming more and more reliant on criminal elements. And perhaps nothing marked this transition more than the arrival of Hanif, commonly known as “Neefa”. The story goes that Billa’s Dera needed some work done on its boundary wall. As Billa’s influence had grown so had the threats and he wanted to raise the walls higher. The labourer that came to do the work was accompanied by his two sons Hanif and Shafiq. Billa was struck by the two young men. The wrestler inside them recognised their strong physiques and he requested the labourer to leave the two sons at his Dera to serve as bodyguards for his son Tipu, who had by now become known as a  brash and reckless youth about town. 

Up until this point Billa’s circle had largely consisted of his own family members. That meant Tipu’s power was restricted since the family was loyal exclusively to Billa. Hanif and Shafiq gave Tipu muscle of his own. The two young men started carrying firearms openly and Tipu would saunter around with them by his side. Billa had felt comfortable walking around Androon unarmed and unworried. But Tipu liked to flex his muscles. He began travelling in elaborate motorcades and being surrounded by gunmen at all times. Today, a cavalcade is nothing special in Lahore. Every two-bit politician, mid-tier bureaucrat, and slightly-shady businessman likes to travel with a couple of trucks on either side of their SUV with armed guards to boot. But the seeds of this tradition were first planted by Tipu. He made shows of strength and aggression popular. And the commanders of this little platoon that travelled with Tipu were Hanif and Shafiq.  

Aided by several employees, the brothers expanded their operations from rent collection to extortion, particularly targeting Shah Alam Market. This move cemented Billa Truckanwala’s control over the criminal underworld of Lahore. As Billa’s reputation and influence expanded, so did his entanglement in illicit activities, which inevitably led to a rise in hostilities. For all of this they were backed by Tipu. Billa was worried at the increasing trouble they were getting into with the police and the growing number of rivals that were popping up in response to these criminal business activities. At the same time he was pleased by the money all of this was bringing in. Business was booming after all. 

At his peak, Billa maintained control over local gangs and fugitives through his extensive network and numerous tenants. The only problem was that the violence they had inflicted to build this business was about to catch up with them. 

Blood feuds

Tipu’s gunslinging methods were bearing great profits. The transport business was better than ever with a number of rivals mysteriously bumped off. On top of this, Billa’s cousin Kulsoom Nawaz was married to the Chief Minister of Punjab Mian Nawaz Sharif. As part of his election campaign, Billa had provided great support to the Sharifs and mobilised his forces to help him win his seat from Gawalmandi. In fact, Billa was an active campaigner for the Sharifs with whom he was on a first name basis. 

But Tipu was also getting reckless. In around 1988, Tipu went with his loyal Hanifa to settle a matter of rent collection with a shopkeeper called Ameer ud Din. The fact that the old man shared a name with his father meant little to Tipu. Who fired the shots that killed Ameer ud Din is disputed to this day. But even Billa’s influence couldn’t save Tipu and Hanif from being put behind bars. 

At this point Billa stepped in. The sense of honour among gangsters is rarely well developed and it is a world where it is every man for themselves. Using his contacts in the police, Billa had his son removed from the murder case Hanifa and his brother were sentenced for the crime, igniting a vendetta.

The incident proved a sobering moment for Tipu as well. His actions from this point onwards were more measured and he seemed to focus more on the moneymaking side of his father’s business than on lording his power over small shopkeepers and picking fights. 

The Dera, however, had changed forever. There were no longer the free flowing cups of tea and card games that it was once known for. It was now teeming not just with lions but with armed guards with the instruction to kill at the slightest provocation. While Hanif and his brother Shafiq rotted in jail and plotted revenge, another force was rising in the Gawalmandi area. 

Khawaja Taarif, known as Teefi Butt, and his cousin Khawaja Aqeel, alias Gogi Butt, established a formidable reign of fear. The Butt brothers had once worked with Billa but as Tipu’s proclivities had asserted an environment of fear over Androon. The feud between Bilan Truckanwala and Tafi Butt started over a small plot near Mochigate and then the feud turned into a family rivalry and two big factions faced each other in Lahore. The Butts responded in turn, setting up their own gangs and carving out sections of the Gawalmandi area and in particular the Shalmi Bazaar. 

There was now a rival Dera to the Truckanwalas and one that was behaving actively hostile towards them. Tensions rose more than a few times at the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s. There was one particular cricket match that proved to nearly be the spark that ignited a war. But by the end of the match men from both sides returned bloody and bruised only for Billa to announce a general pardon and truce. 

Deeper issues of territorial dominance kept the animosity alive. The influence wielded by Teefi and Gogi Butt in Gawalmandi was so extensive that no real estate transactions could proceed without their approval, and they allegedly routinely extorted protection money from local merchants. But it would not all explode until the mid 1990s, when Hanif and his brother Shafiq were released from prison. 

Bye bye Billa 

In 1994 Hanif and Shafiq were released from prison and had one thing on their mind: revenge. At the time Billa and Tipu had security but still walked about time like normal people. After all, who would dare come after Billa Truckanwala? Who would want a blood feud with his gun-toting, lion taming son Tipu? 

But their former men Hanif and Shafiq knew all of the ins and outs of Billa’s movements and Dera. Immediately after coming out of prison they allied with Teefi Butt’s company and with their blessing went after Billa. It happened in the wee hours of the morning in 1998. Billa, now of a distinguished age with thinning white hair and a wispy snow coloured moustache, was exiting the mosque after the morning prayer when Hanif and a number of armed bodyguards burst into his Dera and gunned down Lahore’s most powerful crime boss. 

The incident drew the attention of Nawaz Sharif among other dignitaries and senior police officials who even attended the funeral of Billa. Police officers loyal to the Truckanwalas urged Tipu to let the murder go unanswered and let peace prevail in the city. Tipu Truckanwala was many things but he was also a devoted son that loved his father deeply. That he was murdered in his own home in cold blood was a personal and professional afront to Tipu. Maddened by his grief and egged on by his compatriots, Tipu launched a vicious campaign. This marked the onset of a relentless feud, with Tipu introducing the phenomenon of armed security in Lahore, ensuring his movements were safeguarded by a cohort of armed guards, effectively unchecked.

What followed were hit after hit between the two rival factions. At this point, Tipu’s personal life was taking a hit too. Back in the 1990s, Tipu had fallen in love with a woman in his neighbourhood. He had sent his mother on a number of occasions to her house and asked for her hand in marriage. The girl’s family were eventually impressed by the expensive gifts he would send her and married her off to Tipu. It is reported that on the occasion of his wedding, Tipu broke social convention by placing two 10 tola bangles each on both of his wife’s wrists in front of the wedding guests. 

But with the murder of his father and increased need for protection, Tipu’s family could rarely venture outside their home out of fear of the Butt Brothers attacking them. As a result, Tipu’s wife reportedly became depressed. A family insider relates one conversation where Tipu very lovingly told his wife that he had enough money to bring her any wonder from the world and place it in front of her but only within the walls of his safehouse. His wife responded by asking if he could have an aeroplane land in the Dera and take them away to a different country. 

Whether it was this that convinced Tipu or something else can be left up to the imagination. Over the years the Truckanwalas had made connections in Dubai as well and were frequent visitors to the Gulf. Around 2004 a significant attempt on Tipu’s life was made outside the Aiwan Adal, leading to the murder of several of his bodyguards. Among those accused were Gogi Butt, Teefi Butt, and the notorious encounter specialist Abid Boxer, though they were ultimately acquitted, with Mobeen Butt identified as the main perpetrator and arrested.

Around this time Tipu moved his entire family to Dubai and flitted between Lahore and the Gulf city himself. And it would be on one of these trips that the rivalry would see its bloodiest moment.  

Tipu’s Time

On the 21st of January 2010, Tipu Truckanwala landed at the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore on his way back from Dubai. The burly Tipu was alone when he came out of arrivals. His men were waiting outside to receive their boss and take him on to his Dera. 

An unfortunate surprise awaited Tipu. Upon moving towards the parking structure of the airport, armed gunmen Khurram Butt himself along with a number of his supporters opened fire at Tipu. The crime boss was hit but not down. What followed was a messy chase around the parking lot which ended with Tipu being hit in the abdomen and left for dead on the ground. 

He was rushed to Mayo Hospital. It took two days for Tipu to die with six bullets inside him. His son, Ameer Balaj Tipu, and the rest of his family arrived in preparation for the inevitable. Doctors pumped over 24 bottles of blood into Tipu who lay lifeless but breathing for two days before finally succumbing to his injuries. At the time, Tipu’s children were young. There was no one really to take over the business either. 

This was a time when Shehbaz Sharif was the Chief Minister. As far as political patronage was concerned, it was known that the Truckanwalas were allied with Nawaz Sharif through Kulsoom Nawaz. However the Butt Brothers had actually managed to establish a relationship with Mian Shehbaz Sharif which in a way eliminated the influence that Tipu’s family held. 

As a result, the business of the Truckanwala family suffered. The Butt brothers were able to take over a large chunk of the markets they once controlled. According to one family insider, the family lost nearly a quarter of their business at this point with a number of their enforcers breaking away and revenue falling significantly. The only saving grace was that Tipu had bought property both inside and outside Pakistan in his family’s name and set up legitimate businesses for them as well. As such, his family could very easily have closed up the Dera, moved away, and started afresh. But that was not the end of the rivalry. Because much like his father and grandfather before him, the then young and now murdered Balaj knew no other life. 

The Prince returns 

 It seems that with every passing generation the Truckanwala boss gets younger and younger. Billa made it to a distinguished age before his son took over the family business as a young man. He spent over a decade as the head of the family before being murdered as a middle ager crime boss. So when his son Balaj took over the mantle and sat on his ancestral charpai at the Dera, he was barely into the first few years of adulthood. 

Balaj had actually been studying abroad when his father was murdered and came back to Pakistan to handle his family’s house of cards. Balaj was measured and mature for his age. Immediately he had the desire to strike a note of reconciliation. He was well aware of the carnage his own family had caused to the opposing side as well. Before he could get to this he had to consolidate his own position. With a twenty-something leading the Truckanwala family the Butts were sinking their teeth into Balaj’s territory. 

Immediately, he went in a spree of recruiting gangsters and bolstering his strength. As time went on, it became clear that Balaj meant business resulting in the very tense rivalry becoming more of a Cold War. At the same time, it was obvious that Balaj needed some sort of political protection as well. The Butts had ingratiated themselves to the Sharifs who held political control at the time. Balaj also felt scorned by the Sharifs after none of them arrived at his father Tipu’s funeral and hadn’t come to commiserate with him either. 

That is why he started cosying up with the PTI. Balaj was seen actively campaigning for the PTI for years, posting pictures with party flags and even meeting Imran Khan. In 2018, by the time the PTI came to power, Balaj had restored the family’s position and actually led an effort to bury the old rivalry with Teefi Butt. Balaj actually took the first step and acknowledged that his father and grandfather had gone overboard in the rivalry and wanted to finally bury the hatchet once and for all. 

It was with all of these matters settled that Balaj was gunned down. That it happened at the wedding of a DSP’s son makes it all the more shocking. Many rumours have come out since then. The Butt Brothers have been named in the FIR for his murder and have since fled the country. At the same time, the Lahore police are scrambling to avoid any retaliatory attacks from Balaj’s younger brother. Whether the enmity will take another ugly turn or not is yet to be seen. 

We started this story with three generations of murders. Bill, Tipu, and Balaj. But before these three, even Billa’s father, had been murdered as well. This is a tragic series of underworld killings that have continued across families and across generations. The seeds of these killings were planted more than six decades ago,  several enmities were sown in the city’s neighbourhoods. Shortly after gaining independence, power struggles erupted in various parts of the city, witnessing bloodshed in different areas, including the historic walled city. These conflicts stemmed from disputes over land, personal grudges, clashes of ego, financial matters, and properties. The influence of political patronage weakened the enforcement of law in dealing with these enmities. And as another generation is set to take the mantle, one can only wonder with trepidation when the next murder will be.