Gutkha king Joshi aware Dawood was a terrorist, still helped him: CBI court
The order, which held Joshi, Farukh Mansuri (55) and Jamiruddin Ansari (54) guilty of having connections with the organised crime syndicate headed by Dawood Ibrahim, became available on Tuesday.
Mumbai: Gutkha baron J M Joshi of ‘Goa’ Gutka knew very well that fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar and his brother Anees Ibrahim were global terrorists but still helped them establish a permanent source of income by means of a gutkha-manufacturing unit in Pakistan, the special CBI court said in its order pronounced on Monday.
The order, which held Joshi, Farukh Mansuri (55) and Jamiruddin Ansari (54) guilty of having connections with the organised crime syndicate headed by Dawood Ibrahim, became available on Tuesday.
The CBI had booked nine accused persons in the case while Dawood, Anees, Dawood’s brother-in-law Abdul Antulay and Salim Shaikh were listed as wanted persons. During the trial, Rasiklal M Dhariwal of Manikchand Gutkha died, leading to the case against him being abated. Another accused, Rajesh Panchariya, was discharged.
As per the prosecution case, there was a monetary dispute between Joshi and co-accused Rasiklal Dhariwal, and the two had sought the help of Dawood Ibrahim in resolving the dispute. In return, they had helped the D-gang set up a gutkha-manufacturing unit in Pakistan. Accepting this, the court held that the evidence on record clearly demonstrated that Joshi was well aware that Dawood and his brother Anees were global terrorists but despite this, he and accused R M Dhariwal took their help to settle their business dispute relating to Joshi’s shares in Dhariwal’s company and other dues amounting to ₹259 crore.
The court also noted that after the settlement of the dispute, Joshi paid ₹93 lakh to Anees as well as some other persons who later became prosecution witnesses. The court also accepted the prosecution case that after the settlement, Joshi shared his gutkha formula with Anees to help him set up a factory namely M/s Mehraan Products in the Kothi industrial area of Hyderabad in Pakistan.
Coming down heavily on Joshi on another charge, the court noted that Joshi had sent his former employee (examined as Prosecution Witness No 32) to Karachi by deceiving him. The employee was told that he was being sent to Bangkok but was kidnapped and sent to Karachi and kept there for ten days against his will.
The court also rejected Joshi’s defence that he and Dhariwal were business rivals, and he had to let go of the intellectual property rights concerning his gutkha and paan masala formula. Joshi’s lawyer had further contended that he was entitled to approximately ₹259 Crore from Dhariwal but received only ₹11 crore by way of full and final settlement.
The court said that the issue before it was: did Joshi help Dawood establish a gutkha factory in Pakistan? “The material issue in this case before this court is whether he has abetted the continuous illegal activities of the organised crime syndicate headed by Accused No 7. In this regard, there is ample evidence on record,” the order read.
