Mumbai: After arresting fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s brother Iqbal Kaskar in an extortion case, the Thane crime branch has found out that Kaskar and his two aides, sourced henchmen from Bihar to intimidate owners of disputed land.
Kaskar was allegedly in constant touch with his fugitive brother, Anees Ibrahim who is suspected to be in Pakistan and the police said that the orders came from there.
A police team has been sent to Bihar to track down the suspects.
One of the orders given to Kaskar from Pakistan was to not involve local goons in a bid to wipe off the trail.
The men who carried arms from Bihar, are now under the scanner Thane police, were also used to use force to get transfer rights from builders and in forging documents in some cases.
Kaskar and two aides were arrested by the police on Monday night in an extortion probe that also revealed he was allegedly settling land disputes brought to him by his cronies for a price, an old modus of intervening as third party and making money.
“More complainants are likely to come forward in coming time. We would like to register separate cases against them. We are verifying how much was extorted from who all and what was done with that money,” said Param Bir Singh, Thane police commissioner.
The police has also sought for call detail records (CDR) of Kaskar and others in the case.
“The locations of all the accused and their call details will be looked into. However on most of the occasions, Kaskar would speak to victims after Sayyad and Shaikh would go to them and call Kaskar from their respective phones,” added Mr Singh.
“We want to identify those persons who acted at the behest of Kaskar and Dawood gang. Their statement is crucial in this case. We are looking for them to arrested them for questioning," said a Thane crime branch officer.
The gang had eyes on booming parts of city and extended suburbs and had their eyes on Navi Mumbai too. Kaskar and his henchmen targeted some of the property developers there.
A builder from Vashi was similarly targeted by Kaskar and he went absconding out of fear.
He is another crucial person in the investigation and police trying to locate him in order to register a fresh case against Kaskar and other accused persons.
The Modus Operandi
- Shaikh, an estate agent would keep a watch on the disputed land parcels or upcoming projects to extort from developers.
- Shaikh would inform Sayyad, aide of Kaskar
- Kaskar would then threaten in the name of Dawood Ibrahim and demand extortion
- Kaskar would call on Sayyad or Shaikh's mobile, who would hand over their phone to the victim.
- Extortion would be taken in the form of cash, flats and jewellery
