Accepting police plea, court extends custody of Kaskar, aides till Saturday

Mumbai: The Thane court, on Tuesday remanded Iqbal Kaskar, a brother of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim, and his two aides to police custody till Saturday for further investigation in the extortion cases.

The trio’s custody was extended after the police sought more time to recover three old SIM cards of Kaskar, which he had allegedly used to make extortion calls and threaten people.

“We have recovered two of his cell phones during his arrest on September 18 night, and two numbers that were being used by him since a last couple of years. We have learnt that he had been changing his numbers,” said a Thane crime branch officer.

The investigators also told the court that they are yet to recover the remaining 10 tola gold in second extortion case.

Kaskar along with his aides Asrarali Sayyad and Mumtaz Shaikh extorted gold from a Thane-based jeweller following which a case was registered against the trio on September 20.

The defence, however, launched a scathing attack on the police and said that they were not investigating the case.

“Whenever the police comes before the court they are making same arguments for seeking further custody. The remand copy has paragraphs which they jumble with no major changes,” said Shyam Keswani, Kaskar’s lawyer.

The defence also alleged that police has been making claims of recovering the SIM cards and breaking the chain of arms supplier for the gang in the past but there has been no development on those charges.

However, the police stated that the case and its investigation was complicated as Kaskar is Dawood’s brother and had been threatening people in his name.