Mumbai: Five of ‘Chhota Shakeel gang’ sent to police custody till Oct. 18th

A special court on Tuesday remanded five men allegedly part of underworld don Chhota Shakeel’s gang in the crime branch’s custody till Oct. 18 in an extortion case concerning a businessman. 

The five - Amjad Redkar, 37, Sameer Khan, 49 Ajay Ganda, 63, Javed Pathan, 45 and Firoz Shaikh, 49 were produced before a special court designated under the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA) late evening on Tuesday after their arrest the same day.

The case concerns the extortion of an Andheri-based businessman by Chhota Shakeel’s brother-in-law Iqbal Qureishi alias Salim Fruit and Riyaz Bhati, both of whom had been arrested in the case earlier and were in judicial custody. The businessman had to give his Range Rover car to Fruit under threat and was being asked to pay Rs. 30 lakhs. Provisions of MCOCA were applied by the police after the crime branch learnt of the involvement of Chhota Shakeel and that the extortion was being carried out by creating fear by his name.

The police sought the custody of the five new arrests for seven days along with that of Bhati and Fruit. The court has granted the crime branch custody of Bhati and Fruit till Saturday. 

Seeking custody of the five men, Fruit and Bhati, the police told the court that they need to be confronted with each other. It also told the court that it needs to find who else is part of Chhota Shakeel’s gang and what other crimes the gang has committed. The custody was also sought on the grounds that the accused seemed to have used hawala transactions for offences and it needs to probe this aspect. 

The defence lawyers opposed the custody of the accused and pointed out that the remand application merely makes various allegations against Bhati and Fruit and there is not much information on the role of the accused.