List of Famous people who died in 1981

Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar was an Indian criminal based in Mumbai. He was the elder brother of Dawood Ibrahim, the current gang leader of the D-Company. The rise of Shabir and Dawood in Mumbai's underworld and the sympathetic attitude of the Mumbai police towards them evoked the jealousy and resentment of other established gang members from the Pathan gang that dominated South Mumbai area. Finally, the inter-gang rivalry grew to such an extent that Manya Surve, his gang and Amirzada and Alamzeb plotted to kill Shabir and Dawood. On 12 February 1981, they gunned Shabir down at a petrol pump in Prabhadevi.

Paul Bausch was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and former member of the German Bundestag.

Howard Purcell was an American comics artist and writer active from the 1940s Golden Age of Comic Books through the 1960s Silver Age.

Morris Saffian, better known by the pseudonyms Ray Saffian (R.S.) Allen, Ray Allen Saffian, and Ray Allen, was an American writer of radio, television, and film, as well as a television producer.

Mullah Attiya al-Jamri was a Bahraini khatib and poet.

P. Kakkan or fondly known as Kakkanji, was an Indian politician and freedom fighter who served as a member of the Constituent Assembly of India, Member of Parliament, President of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee and in various ministerial posts in Congress governments in the erstwhile Madras state between 1957 and 1967.