The Mumbai police on Thursday was going through records of the seven accused arrested in the kidnapping case of a Surat-based ‘drug manufacturer’—who was abducted and rescued over 32 days later from Banda in Uttar Pradesh—to check if the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) can be applied against them.
Under MCOCA, getting bail is difficult atleast for a few years. For the accused to be charged under MCOCA, certain conditions have to be met like two chargesheets have to be filed against someone in the syndicate, which is related to gang activity in the past 10 years. Out of the seven accused held in the case, one is suspected to have close ties to Dawood Ibrahim’s aide Chhota Shakeel.
An officer said, ” We are going through the past records of the accused to see if the criterion for MCOCA is met. Apart from that, a few of our teams are still on the ground tracking some other accused who are linked to the case. A few more arrests are likely in the matter.”
The officer further said that they are checking if the entire operation was carried out at the behest of Chhota Shakeel as the main arrested accused—Sarwar Khan—is an aide of Shakeel’s younger brother Anwar, or if it was planned by Sarwar himself. Sarwar himself has around seven cases registered against him.
Officers said Sarwar claims that they had paid Rs 50 lakhs to the Surat-based man identified as Sajid Electricwala to produce mephedrone, he had taken the money but not delivered the goods.
Electricwala was arrested by the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad for production of mephedrone. Electricwala, who had been abducted by Sarwar and his gang, claimed that he was paid the money to purchase some properties.
On June 13, Electricwala, along with his aide, had been abducted by seven people who took them to a farmhouse in Raigad where they were beaten up. While Electricwala’s aide managed to escape within two days, the accused kept moving Electricwala to various states. He was rescued by teams from the Mumbai crime branch on Tuesday night from Banda in UP, following which seven arrests were made. The accused are currently in police custody.