City police take accused to Indore court in ambulance, fail to get transit remand

Mateen.Hafeez@timesgroup.com

Mumbai: A city police team has been camping in Indore for nine days to take into custody a Rs 9 crore cheating accused. The 62-year-old managing director of a private firm was arrested by Mumbai police and taken in an ambulance to court but the transit remand was not granted as he was lying in the ambulance in the compound. 

A team of city economic offences wing (EOW) officers arrested Rajiv Soni from Indore and took him to a local hospital for a medical examination. Soni complained of high blood pressure and high sugar at the government-run Maharaja Yeshwantrao Hospital. Meanwhile, when the police team reached the court for the transit remand, the judge told them that he first wanted to see the accused physically in court. Police went back to the hospital, hired an ambulance and carried him to the court. Rajiv’s lawyer alleged in court that his client was forcefully brought there. Subsequently, the transit remand was not granted. Mumbai police had admitted Rajiv to the hospital on February 8. It is learnt that the Mumbai police team had to pay for Rajiv’s “treatment”.

The associate vice-president of a multinational bank, which has its office in south Mumbai, had lodged a complaint of cheating of over Rs 5 crore. Investigations revealed that the amount was around Rs 9 crore. Rajiv and coaccused, Vijay Soni, MD in a private firm, and directors, Sharang Soni, Nirmalkumar Sharma and G P Mathur, were named in the FIR along with Mohanlal Hemrajan, director of another private firm, Opel Trade Impex Pvt Ltd.

The accused’s firm approached the bank for a loan, stating they had bought some goods from Opel. A loan of Rs 9 crore was sanctioned and Rs 5 crore was disbursed. But during scrutiny the bank realised the documents of sale and purchase, and invoices submitted were forged. When a bank official visited Rajiv’s office at Nariman Point, he found it was shut down and the accused had fled. On September 2, 2016, a cheating case was registered with MRA Marg police and the case was transferred to EOW. A Mumbai court has rejected Rajiv’s interim bail plea.

The Times  of India, February 17, 2019

1993 serial blasts suspect held in UAE, may be deported soon

Abu Bakar Had Gone To PoK For Training

Mateen.Hafeez@timesgroup.com

 

Mumbai: A 51-year-old fugitive wanted for plotting and helping transport the explosives used in the 1993 serial bomb blasts in the city was detained in the UAE on Wednesday on inputs provided by Indian security agencies, and is likely to be deported soon. 

Abu Bakar Abdul Gafoor, a central Mumbai resident, is alleged to have undergone training with several others on explosives and in assembling firearms in a camp in Pakistan-occupied Kashimir (PoK) before the blasts. “He was never arrested in the bomb blast case,” said a source.

Sources said Abu Bakar’s name cropped up during the investigation and in the statements of several other accused, prompting the CBI to issue a red corner notice (RCN) in November 1997. The Interpol notice alerts security agencies across the world about an accused and enjoins them to arrest the person. There is no clarity on how he was detained by the UAE police.

The blasts probe had found that Abu Bakar participated in several conspiracy meetings before the March 12, 1993, serial explosions. The meetings were conducted at various places, and prime accused Dawood Ibrahim attended several such meetings.

Before the blasts, a group of youths from Mumbai went for training to Pakistan, where they learnt to operate firearms and assemble explosives. Abu Bakar was allegedly part of this group. After the blasts, he never returned India.

He surfaced in the UAE and would do small business. It is learnt that he married an Iranian woman and settled down in the Emirates.

The explosives and firearms used in the 1993 blasts were sent from Dubai.

 

Bakar used to work with the Dossa brothers as smuggler

Abu Bakar is alleged to have been part of the team that helped smuggle the explosives to Dighi jetty near Murud, where it was collected by other plotters and brought to Mumbai.

Earlier, in Mumbai, in the mid-80s, he joined the Dossa brothers— Mustafa and Mohammed, both also accused in the 1993 case—and worked for them. He was into smuggling electronic goods, TV, gold and clothes from the Gulf countries to India.

It is not clear how Abu Bakar managed to dodge the agencies for so many years. The CBI is probing the 1993 blast cases, one of the world’s deadliest terror acts. Twelve blasts at different locations in Mumbai had killed 257 people and injured 713 others. Property worth Rs 27 crore was damaged.

In 2007, the Tada court had sentenced 12 convicts to death. One of them, Yaqub Memon, was executed in 2015. Another 20 convicts were awarded life sentences. However, the SC commuted the death sentences of several accused to life. 

The Times of India, February 15, 2019

26 years after jumping bail, ex-bank staffer held in Rs 1 crore con case

Mateen Hafeez I TNN

Feb 14, 2019, 04.59 AM IST

 

 

MUMBAI: Cracking what could be one of its oldest cases, the city's economic offences wing (EOW) arrested a former bank employee who had jumped bail 26 years ago in an over Rs 1-crore cheating case. The case file was lying in the court as 'dormant'.

In 1993, Lal Ghanshani had filed a complaint stating that cheating and forgery was committed by seven men, including the manager of Shalini Sahakari Bank Ltd Bhagwan Mokashi and accountant Ashok Sawant. The police registered the case of fraudulent encashment of a pay order, arrested the seven suspects, and filed the chargesheet. During trial, five of the seven accused died, including Mokashi. The court had issued a warrant against Sawant, who jumped bail. He was finally arrested on Monday from his Nerul residence. The seventh accused is still on the run.

During investigation, the police found that Sawant had moved out of Solitaire House at Mahim after the building was demolished for redevelopment. "Police teams visited Mahim at least 10 times but in vain. We were trying to get in touch with the other residents of the building and finally traced one of them. The police team got Sawant's contact number from the building redevelopment committee, but he was no longer using it. While scanning the call data record (CDR) of his old mobile number, the police found that frequent calls were made and received from a certain number. They obtained the CDR of the other number, which turned out to be registered in the name of a relative of Sawant," said a police source. From the relative's number, the police got another mobile number registered in Sawant's name with a Nerul address.

A police team kept a tab on the number's location for two days before landing at the address and arrested Sawant on Monday. "He now deals in real estate and shuttles between Navi Mumbai and Pune...Sawant was under the impression that the file was closed and the police would never reach him," said a police source. He has been sent to judical custody. EOW chief Vinay Choubey and deputy commissioner of police Rajiv Jain formed a team, led by senior inspector Kishor Parab, to trace Sawant.

The EOW is focusing on executing the standing warrants against the accused who are on the run.

The Times of India, February 14, 2019

2003 Gateway bomber who was sentenced to death dies in jail

Mateen Hafeez I TNN | Feb 12, 2019, 03.45 AM IST

 

 

MUMBAI: Hanif Sayyed, 56, one of the three convicts sentenced to death in the 2003 twin bomb blasts at the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar, died in Nagpur jail on Sunday. TOI had published the news of his death in its final edition on Monday.

Sources said Sayyed’s health suddenly deteriorated on Saturday evening in jail, after which he was shifted to the Government Medical College and Hospital. He died at the hospital one-and-a-half hours after he was admitted.

According to preliminary information, he died of a cardiac arrest. His body was later sent for a post-mortem. A relative from Pune said his body would be buried in Nagpur.

Retired ACP Suresh Walishetty, who was chief investigating officer in the case, said Sayyed, an Andheri resident, was working in Dubai in 2002 when he was radicalised by some people. He returned to India and executed the blasts that killed 54 persons and injured 184. Sayyed had told the police that some people he met in Dubai had showed him videos and photos from the 2002 Gujarat riots and told him atrocities were being perpetrated against Muslims.

Sayyed and Ashrat Ansari then formed a group, the Gujarat Muslim Revenge Force, which carried out the blasts. Sayyed, his wife Fahmeeda and Ansari were awarded death sentences in 2009 and the Bombay high court later upheld the trial court’s order. Sayyed’s appeal before the SC is pending. Walishetty, who called Sayyed a “simple man,” said that “after he was indoctrinated in the UAE, he returned to India and drove an autorickshaw for a while.” Walishetty said the case was solved because the driver of the taxi in which the bomb was planted had had a providential escape. He had stepped out to use a toilet when the bomb went off at the Gateway of India on August 25, 2003.

“We got the taxi driver, Shivnarayan Pandey. ...this was our first lead in the case.” The taxi driver told police he had been hired by a couple who had got into his cab from Andheri. It was the second day the couple, along with their two children, had travelled in his cab, he said. “The couple had told Pandey they were not from Mumbai and wanted to go sightseeing. On the first day, Pandey took them to south Mumbai and on returning to Andheri, they asked him to come again the next day,” Walishetty said. Within 24 hours the cops were at Chimatpada in Andheri, where Sayyed lived with his family. “We heard Sayyed’s wife, Fahmeeda, was seen with a man, Ashrat Ansari. We first picked up Ansari,” he said. Taken in a police van to Aarey Colony and interrogated by inspector Vinayak Saude and his team, Ansari, a zari worker, spilled the beans.

“We then went to Chimatpada and saw a crowd in Sayyed’s lane. A neighbour of Sayyed had died. We mingled in the crowd and finally entered his house, bringing Sayyed to the lockup,” Walishetty said.

The probe into the blasts was supervised by Rakesh Maria, then additional commissioner. During interrogation, Sayyed said that on the day of the blasts, his family had got down from Pandey’s taxi at Gateway of India and told him they were going for lunch. After they left, Pandey also got off, to go to the toilet. Moments later, the taxi was ripped apart by the explosion. The Sayyeds had left their bag, containing bombs, inside the taxi. The couple left the place and reached home. “After reaching home, the couple sat to watch the news on TV,” Walishetty said.


The Times of India, February 12, 2019

Double murder: Dad says he killed 3-yr-old for bringing bad luck

Mateen.Hafeez@timesgroup.com

 

Mumbai: More than a week after a Mahim zari unit owner and his girlfriend were arrested for allegedly murdering his wife and three-year-old daughter, he told the police that he slit his child’s throat because he believed that she brought him ‘bad luck’. The accused, Iliyas Sayyed (36), also told the police that he and Aafreen Bano (22) had tried to set his flat in Diamond Apartments in Mahim (E) on fire to cover up the killings.

The murders came to light on January 31 morning, when residents noticed smoke coming out of Sayyed’s 10th floor flat. They called him up and also informed the Shahu Nagar police. When Sayyed opened the door, the police found the bodies of his wife Tehseen and daughter Aaliya in the kitchen. Their throats were slit and bodies partially burnt. His elder daughter Samaana was in school at the time of the incident. The next day, the police arrested Sayyed and Bano, who works as a salesgirl in a private firm. Sayyed was having an extramartial affair since three years, said the police.

During interrogation, Sayyed told the police: “My younger daughter brought me bad luck. I have been suffering losses since her birth, so I killed her along with Tehseen. I wanted to marry Bano and live with her and my elder daughter Samaana.” Initially, he tried to mislead the police. “He claimed that his wife had killed Aaliya and so he slit her throat in a fit of rage. But after sustained interrogation, he confessed to killing them both,” said an officer. “We have recovered the knife and Sayyed’s blood-stained shirt and sent them for forensic analysis.”

After committing the crime, Sayyed left for work as usual and called up Bano. “A burqa-clad Bano arrived outside the building in a taxi and told the driver to wait till she returned. Her image was captured on the building’s CCTV cameras,” said an officer. “The plan was to set the flat on fire, but as Bano could not find kerosene, she poured edible oil on the bodies. But when she tripped on Tehseen’s body, she panicked and rushed out of the flat.”

The Times of India, February 11, 2019

Doctor clicks on link sent by ‘bank’, loses ₹3L

Mateen.Hafeez@timesgroup.com

Mumbai: A 30-year-old man for a private company in Pune was arrested on Saturday for allegedly duping a doctor from Gamdevi of Rs 2.9 lakh last November. 

The accused, Bipin Mahato, who was nabbed from Pune, had called the doctor on November 21 and introduced himself as an executive of a bank with which the doctor maintains an account, said an official from Gamdevi police station. The caller briefed the doctor about the bank’s services and “verified” his (the doctor’s) account number to lend credence that he was an authorised official calling from the bank.

“He told the doctor that he had to authorise the bank’s app that the medico had been using. For this, he said he would send him a link on his cellphone and the doctor only had to click on it and forward it to another number,” said a police source.

As the doctor done that, he received five messages on his phone about Rs 2.9 lakh being transferred from his account, said the source. The doctor was unable to contact the caller after which he lodged a complaint.

The police probe revealed that the money had been trasnferred to the account of one Bipin Mahato from Bettiah in Bihar. The police tracked him down to his workplace in Pune. Mahato is in police custody.

The Times of India, February 11, 2019

Watchman's call data leads cops to NSEL ex-director

Mateen Hafeez I TNN

MUMBAI: Former NSEL director Joseph Massey, who has been in the news for scripting a daring escape through a secret outlet from his home, literally went off the radar by switching off his cellphone and desisting from using credit or debit cards.

What led to his arrest on January 27 was an analysis of the call data records of 60 persons known to him, a monitoring of their phones and combing of CCTV footage from 50 buildings. Ultimately, a call placed to a watchman at one of NSEL's offices from Navi Mumbai made the police zero in on Massey's location. CCTV footage from there narrowed the chase down to a silver car.

To track down Massey, the police carried out a 50-hour operation using high-tech devices and old-school hands-on sleuthing. A police team even rented a flat in Vashi as part of the operation. In police circles, the manhunt for Massey is being touted as the most exhaustive tech-dependent one in recent years.

"Massey's was a well-planned escape and we reacted suitable," said an officer. To execute the plan to nab Massey, EOW chief Vinay Choubey formed a team led by DCP Rajiv Jain, ACP Prabhakar Loke, senior inspector Ramchndra Lotlikar, APIs Atul Kedar, Vikrant Shirsath, Wangale and Rahul Pawar, and staff.

Two teams were formed, one to be at the EOW headquarters to monitor gadgets, and the other to be in the field.

The field team surveyed 45 hotels and guesthouses in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, where, based on information, Massey was suspected to be hiding. The persons whose phones were monitored included Massey's business contacts, his company's office bearers and watchmen. The breakthrough came while monitoring an NSEL office watchman's phone. "We learnt Massey had used a PCO from Navi Mumbai to make a call. This was the first time we got whiff of his location since his escape in mid-January," said an officer. As Massey's location kept changing, the police hired a technician with expertise in tracking cellphones based on minimal data points. With the aid of the technician and CCTV footage, the police learnt that Massey was going around in a silver car.

Ultimately, it was blind luck that landed him in the police net. A cop spotted him on a road in Belapur and alerted his colleagues. As the police closed in, Massey tried to escape. But like a satisfactory movie ending, his efforts were foiled.

Massey's custody was extended till Thursday on a request by the EOW, which wants him to confront former NSEL MD Anjani Sinha.


The Times of India, February 8, 2019