Mumbai, Nov 18: The city crime branch has arrested members of two factions of a fugitive gangster who were planning to eliminate film producer Mahesh Bhatt and his family. The gang is also involved in threatening and firing at film producer Karim Morani's bungalow in August.
Joint commissioner of police (crime) Sadanand Date said they had arrested 13 members of the gangster who targeted Bollywood personalities for cheap publicity. Investigations have been handed over to assistant commissioner of police Sunil Deshmukh, who will focus on identifying the gangster's middlemen in the city. The police are likely to invoke the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the case.
Date said a tip-off to inspectors Jagdish Sail and Dheeraj Kohli led to the arrests and recovery of three country-made weapons and five phones. Sail and his team laid a trap and arrested eight of them near Bhatt's residence at Khar. Among those arrested are Ishrat Shaikh, Mohammed Khan, Azim Khan, Ashfaq Sayyed, Shanuwaz Shaikh, Feroz Sayyed, Shabbir Shaikh, Rahim Khan and Mohammed Merchant. One of them is a second year civil engineering student, while another had befriended a watchman at Bhatt's building.
"Most of them are from the Mumbra-Kausa belt, uneducated, unemployed, and have been lured by the gangster for petty sums. In fact, one of them had done a recce of the target at Juhu but then went on the back-foot. The gangster later sent another team to do the job," Date said.
He said investigations revealed that some of them received around Rs 11 lakh from the gangster through hawala. The police are trying to track down the middlemen who arranged the money and brought all the accused to one platform.
Sources said the gangster had targeted Morani only to scare him into giving the overseas rights of his film to a US-based NRI Bhittu Singh. But the gangster had directed the shooters to kill Bhatt, and if they did not get him, Mukesh Bhatt or Rahul Bhatt. The police provided extra security to them, though Mahesh has been enjoying police security since 1999, when he was first targeted.
In 1999, the crime branch had killed three gangsters who were trailing Bhatt from Film City, and another attempt was made on him in 2003. Bhatt was not available for comment.
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