The Mumbai police’s crime branch on Thursday took custody of Abdul Rauf alias Dawood Merchant (45), an alleged aide of fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, who was convicted in the murder of cassette king Gulshan Kumar in 1997 but later jumped a 14-day parole in 2009 and absconded. Acting on a 2010 Bombay high court order, the Mumbai crime branch on Thursday produced Rauf before the court.
The crime branch is likely to hand over Rauf to the Thane police on Friday. An Interpol red corner notice was also pending against Rauf. According to sources, Rauf was allegedly deported to India by Bangladeshi authorities. A senior police officer, however, insisted it was the Border Security Force (BSF) that nabbed Rauf while he was trying to cross the India-Bangladesh international border illegally and was subsequently handed over to the Mumbai police as he was wanted in several cases probed by it and was also convicted in one of them. At the time Rauf jumped parole, he was serving a life term for his role in the murder of Kumar in August 1997 at Andheri in Mumbai.
A trial court in 1997 had convicted Rauf in the Kumar murder case and had sentenced him to undergo life imprisonment. In 2009, Merchant was released on a 14-day parole to meet his family but went missing. Later, the Bangaladesh police had arrested him for entering their country without valid documents.
