A Special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court, on Saturday convicted and sentenced two Chotta Shakeel gang members to ten years in prison for trying to extort money from alleged kidney racket kingpin Santosh Raut’s ex-wife in 2007.
Raut was wanted by the Gurgaon police in the kidney transplant racket and had been arrested in a similar racket in Mumbai in 1994. Shakeel targeted Raut’s wife, Sunita, not being aware that she had divorced Raut following his arrest in the scam.
One of the two convicts, Zamir Zaheer, is the brother-in-law of Chota Shakeel’s brother, Anwar. Both accused, Zaheer and Tanvir Mohammed Aslam Sayed were arrested by the Mumbai crime branch on January 16, 2007 near Bandra railway station on their way to “kill Raut”. The two accused were caught with two loaded pistols, one of which was imported.
According to the crime branch, Sunita had received extortion calls from Zaheer since 2006. He allegedly called Sunita and repeatedly threatened to kill Raut if she didn’t give them Rs1crore. Sunita tried to explain phone that she had divorced Raut, but the accused didn’t believe her, said a crime branch source.
The duo even sent Sunita a courier from Dubai with a letter and Raut’s photograph which was scribbled over, depicting gun shots on his head and chest.
However, this too had no impact on Sunita. Finally, when the demands were not met, the two accused were allegedly sent by Shakeel from Dubai to kill Raut in his Juhu residence. A team led by senior police inspector, Ramesh Mahale, assistant police inspector, Sanjay Surve and police inspector, Jagdish Kulkarni seized the courier and the tapes of the extortion calls recorded by Sunita.
Special public prosecutor, Dilip Shah examined 26 witnesses, including voice analysts, the courier boy and a handwriting expert, who said that the handwriting of the accused matched the one on the courier.
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