Arif Alvi was perhaps the most expensive dentist in the country. His father was Dr. Elahi Alvi, a highly successful dentist with the first Indian Prime Minister Nehru being one of his patients. He was a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami when I met him, as was his son. 

But it wasn't for dental problems that I interacted with Dr. Arif Alvi. My teeth were in good shape until 1996. I used to meet him because his family was also in the salt manufacturing business, as I was (until 1991). Dr. Alvi had a half-brother Mujeeb (who may still be alive), the son of the elder Dr. Alvi from his first wife. This guy Mujeeb used to manage the Sind Salt Works, which they had got free from the Evacuee Property department, in exchange for the property they had left behind in India. 

Mujeeb used to indulge in looting the country by evading excise duty (which was Rs. 0.07 per kg, a very high percentage, considering that the price of salt, including excise duty, was Rs. 0.10 to Rs. 0.12 per Kg). When Mujeeb bought another salt works (one of the largest in the country), his father knew that the money to buy it had been earned illegally by Mujeeb from Sind Salt Works. So he took legal action against his son, and later got a verdict in his favor. The court ruled that the Alvi family Trust was the true owner of the Habib Ocean Salt works. The elder Dr. Alvi died a few months later.

Mujeeb did the same thing he used to do in Sind Salt Works: massively cheating the government. Out of twenty truck loads of salt produced daily, he would pay duty on only three or four trucks. He was caught and sentenced to a year's rigorous imprisonment and a fine of nine million rupees (a substantial amount in 1979).

I used to meet the future president of Pakistan in the 1980's when Mujeeb had come out of jail and the family was considering to make him manager of the salt works, as I knew that Mujeeb would again embark on evading duty and selling his salt cheaply in the open market. I tried hard to persuade Dr. Alvi not to give the management of the huge salt works to Mujeeb, but he didn't agree.

Dr. Alvi at that time was a powerful speaker, like most Jamaat-e-Aslami leaders. AppatentlyHe too must have indulged in heavy tax evasion, because he was one of those who took advantage of an amnesty scheme to whiten black money. He later joined Imran Khan's party, because he knew that the religious party had no chance of winning in elections. But there is one thing about him I'll never forget: he was a terrible miser. He never offered a cup of tea to anyone who visited him. 

 

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