2 Chhota Rajan gang members held

The Anti-Extortion Cell (AEC) of the Mumbai crime branch arrested two members of the Chhota Rajan gang who are believed to be involved in number of extortion cases in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai. The Mumbai crime branch sleuths have also seized a dozen phones and one firearm, along with two rounds, from them.

According to the officers in the AEC, all the arrested accused worked for Aftab Alam alias Haji, who is alleged to be a very close aide of Rajan. "It was Haji who would make the extortion calls to the targets, and, as per our record, there are at least 10 cases of extortion registered against him," said an officer.

"The Interpol in 2003 has also issued a red corner notice against Haji and the police have been the lookout for him since a long time."

"The accused would compile details of the landowners whose land was in some dispute and would then pass on the information to Haji. After that he would make extortion calls from Malaysia to the builders," said Dhananjay Kulkarni, deputy commissioner of police (detection), explaining the modus operandi.

The arrested accused have been identified as Prashant Muliya alias Annu and Nadeem Kazi. The duo was arrested when the names of the two cropped up during the interrogation of the four accused arrested earlier — Gopal Shetty, Keshav Bhange, Shailesh Uttekar and Vinod Rajpethe alias Bala, who were arrested in connection with the extortion of a Dahisar-based chartered accountant and developer family. The family had got several extortion calls from local and international numbers, demanding Rs15 crore in June. Bhange, Muliya and Kazi have extorted over Rs30 lakh from a Nerul-based builder in 2014.

Additional commissioner of police (crime) KMM Prasanna said, "It was a good detection by our team and it's an important arrest. The entire team had worked hard to crack the case and the arrest will give us more details of the gang."