Santokben Jadeja

Santokben Jadeja, popularly was known as "Godmother", and probably the only famous case of a lady heading an underworld enterprise in India. Her area of operations have been in and around Porbandar. Though now marginalized by the Bharatiya Janata Party, she was once a key player in the Mafia operations of Porbandar.

Early life

She was married to Sarman Munja Jadeja, a leader of Maher community, who was an ordinary mill worker at Maharana Mill, but became a gangster and don when he killed the local gangster Devu Vagher, who was hired by the mill owner to break the strike.

Till 1986 Santokben was playing the role of a home maker and a mother when under the influence of Pandurang Shastri of the Swadhyay movement her husband Samran had bid farewell to arms and crime. But in December 1986, her husband was shot dead by Kala Keshav gang owing to old rivalry. This brought Santokben in to forefront, who decided to go back to old way of his spouse, to get even.

She was an MLA from 1990 to 1995 as a candidate of Janata Dal and was close to Chimanbhai Patel.