Two alleged Chhota Shakeel gang members were convicted by the special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime court on Saturday.  They were sentenced to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment for extorting money from Santosh Raut alias Amit Kumar, who allegedly ran an illegal kidney transplant racket. The prosecution said since February 2005, Santosh used to receive extortion calls from Shakeel demanding Rs 1 crore.

Even his wife, Sunita, used to get threat calls, the crime branch said, but Santosh did not take the calls seriously. 

On January 16, the crime branch's anti-extortion cell arrested Zamir Zaheer and Tanveer Ahmed near Bandra station and recovered firearms. They were going to kill Sunita at her Juhu residence.

Police said Shakeel was unaware that Sunita had divorced Santosh after he was arrested. 

"We proved that the case was the handiwork of organised crime syndicate," said special public prosecutor Dileep Shah, and told the court that accused were acting on Shakeel's orders.