New Delhi, June 28 -- On a sweltering August morning in 1997, Mumbai pulsed with its usual chaos of cars and hawkers, along with the hum of Bollywood tunes wafting from roadside stalls. Suddenly, the comforting rhythm of daily life was rudely interrupted by the sharp crack of sixteen bullets at the gates of the Jeeteshwar Mahadev Temple, where Gulshan Kumar Rai had come to offer his daily prayers. The assailants, shadows of the notorious Dawood Ibrahim syndicate, vanished into the city's sprawl, leaving behind the crumpled body of a man who had, over the previous two decades, turned India's music industry into his own audacious symphony.

With his killing, a burgeoning business empire built on melody and commerce lay shattered. It was a b...