3 more held in Electricwala drug-trafficker kidnapping case

The incident dates back to June 16, when the police rescued a man, Sajid Electricwala, from Uttar Pradesh’s Banda district, who was kidnapped by the gang and was illegally confined for a month for failing to manufacture and supply Mephedrone to them

MUMBAI: In connection with the kidnapping case of the drug trafficker Sajid Electricwala, the police have arrested three more individuals on Wednesday. The accused men have connections with the gangsters Chhota Shakeel and Dawood Ibrahim, said a police officer. “The main accused was in touch with gangster Chhota Shakeel’s brother Anwar Shaikh for supplying Mephedrone to the gang.”

(Shutterstock)

The accused are identified as Mohammad Hussain Farid Khan, 37, Jeetendra Thakur, 48, and Vijay Kale, 34. They have been remanded to police custody till Tuesday. In June, the police had arrested seven individuals with a connection to the case, identified as Sarwar Maqsood Khan, Yunush Tewarpal, Mehtab Ali, Santosh Waghmare, Rahul Sawant, Satish Kadu and Taufeeque Sandy.

“We found that they were in touch with Anwar Shaikh, the brother of gangster Chhota Shakeel. We suspect that the accused men supply Mephedrone to the gang. The accused used a mobile application, Zangi, for communication, which provides “military-grade” end-to-end encryption for messages. The application doesn’t require a mobile number to register and also doesn’t save any messages. This makes it almost impossible to track or read in transit,” said the police officer.

The incident dates back to June 16, when the police rescued a man, Sajid Electricwala, from Uttar Pradesh’s Banda district, who was kidnapped by the gang and was illegally confined for a month for failing to manufacture and supply Mephedrone to them. Following this, the police arrested the seven men. During the investigation, it was learnt that the accused kidnapped Electricwala for allegedly taking ₹50 lakh from them and not supplying the contraband.

The investigation has revealed that the main accused, Sarwar Maqsood Khan, had been working for Anwar Shaikh. The police also said that Anwar Shaikh had provided them with the money to manufacture Mephedrone.

The manufactured drugs were then sold by Umed Ul Rehman and Salim Dola, alleged members of Dawood Ibrahim’s gang, said the officer.

“We also recovered a photo of the plant where the gang used to manufacture MD from Sarwar Khan’s phone. Efforts for tracing the unit are underway. The transferring of money was done through hawala accounts,” the officer added.