Search on for drive-by shooter Mahalingam

Nasiruddin Shaikh (42), a tea stall owner and broker, was shot dead by two bike-borne assailants on April 6, at a busy road in Fatehwadi.

The shots were fired by the pillion rider. Shaikh was hit in the chest and died on spot.

Investigation has revealed that the two men on the bike were drunk and were looking to commit two murders. The pillion rider was the absconding criminal Shiva Mahalingam alias Aftab (convicted in the Nirma farmhouse armed robbery case).  The Ahmedabad Crime Branch, on April 12, arrested Babu Patil alias Shakir Ali Shaikh, the man who was riding the bike. Upon interrogation, police learned that the shooter was Mahalingam, who had jumped parole following the 2012 Nirma robbery in which he had tried to loot the owner of Nirma group Karsan Patel’s house.

After shooting the tea stall owner, Mahalingam who was allegedly drunk, had gone looking for Shahrukh (another resident of the area) to kill him as well. “We got to know about Mahalingam from his accomplice. Later, it was found that after the shooting, he also went to a building construction site office in Fatewadi, took some money and went in search of Shahrukh to murder him as well. But we found that he was unsuccessful,” said a police source.

According to sources in the police department, Mahalingam, after jumping parole, had converted to Islam and officials claimed that he’d gotten his act together. But he later met Patil and got involved in the illegal liquor and gambling business.