Hacker held in Eknath Khadse-Dawood Ibrahim call record case applies for bail

'Ethical hacker' Manish Bhangale on Thursday filed a bail application at the Esplanade Court in Azad Maidan stating that he had been implicated in the case by the police.

Bhangale also claimed that call details of former Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse provided by the telecom company to the police were different from when he (Bhangale) alleged that Khadse had received calls from underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

Police, on the other hand, claimed that Bhangale was not divulging details of the mobile phone he had used to create the fake email ID (mehjabeenshaikh918@gmail.com) of Dawood's wife Mehajabeen Shaikh. The said email ID was used to communicate with Pakistan telecommunication Pvt Ltd's (PTCL) and seek call records of Mehajabeen's Karachi-based PTCL landline number.

While Bhangale claimed he had received Mehajabeen's call records from PTCL's email ID billing@ptcl.net.pk in which it was stated that Khadse had received seven calls from the said landline, police claimed the email ID had been spoofed by Bhangale to obtain bogus call records that could frame Khadse.

"When we probed deeper, it transpired that Bhangale had not received any emails from PTCL on mehjabeenshaikh918@gmail.com. We suspect more persons were involved in the conspiracy along with Bhangale," said a police officer.

Bhangale claimed the email ID mehjabeenshaikh918@gmail.com was hacked by someone and all the emails in the account had been deleted.