MUMBAI: A special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime (MCOC) Act court has acquitted four alleged members of a crime syndicate led by Anees Ibrahim, brother of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar. The four were suspects in a ₹50-lakh extortion bid against a Malad hotelier between July 2017 and June 2018.
Special Judge Mahesh K Jadhav said the prosecution had “utterly failed” to establish that the accused had conspired with Anees and his close aide Chhota Shakil to threaten and extort money from the victim. The court added that the evidence did not prove a criminal conspiracy or the mandatory “continued unlawful activity required to invoke the MCOC Act.
The case relates to an FIR registered on June 22, 2018, at the Malad police station, later transferred to the anti-extortion cell of the police crime branch. According to the police, the victim, a hotelier with business interests in Dubai, began getting calls and WhatsApp messages from international numbers demanding ₹50 lakh. One of these numbers was allegedly operated by the wanted accused Nasir Khan in Pakistan.
The complainant told the court that one of his hotel’s investors had been murdered in 2001 allegedly by associates of Anees Ibrahim. The accused were therefore threatening to murder the victim too if he refused to pay them.
According to the prosecution, among the accused was Ramdas Parshuram Rahane, 49, alias Hemant/Sameer Jagtap, who sent threats and demanded money from the victim. The others included Harish Shamlal Gyanchandani, 51, who allegedly channelled funds through informal channels, Aziz Abdul Unni Mohamed, 62, alias Ajju Rolex, and Mohamad Altaf Abdul Latif Syed, 57, who allegedly represented Anees’s overseas network, and Danish Ali Jamaluddin Ahmed, 43, who was discharged and pardoned after he provided testimony against the other accused.
Evidence in the case included WhatsApp chats, voice notes, call data records, and alleged recoveries–a pistol from Rahane, a licensed revolver from Mohamed, and digital devices–as well as the approver’s testimony. However, the court noted that Ahmed’s testimony had not been corroborated, and there were inconsistencies in witness accounts.
The court said that the chain of custody for the electronic evidence was unclear, and added that Mohamed had a valid license for the arms he possessed and they were unrelated to the alleged conspiracy. As per the judgement, there were contradictions in the witness testimony, inconsistencies in the voice recordings, and no material to corroborate the evidence.
Representatives of the accused argued that the evidence did not establish that the five had colluded with each other or the wanted gangsters. The court agreed and acquitted all five, and ordered their bail bonds to be cancelled, and sureties to be returned.