MCOCA court acquits four Chhota Shakeel gang members

Four alleged members of the Chhota Shakeel gang were acquitted by a special MCOCA court in Mumbai for plotting the murder of a former associate over monetary issues. The court refused to accept the prosecution's case based on confessional statements and acquitted the accused.

Mumbai: A special MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act) court on Friday acquitted four alleged members of the Chhota Shakeel gang after seven years for allegedly plotting the murder of the gangster’s former associate Iqbal Attarwala over monetary issues.

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As per the prosecution case and Attarwala’s statement to the Mumbai police crime branch, Attarwala was going through financial problems in 2014 and had therefore contacted Razak Baloch – an absconding accused – for help. Baloch agreed to help him, but in return asked him to provide a bank account in Venezuela.

For this, Attarwala said that Baloch asked him to meet a person named Zulfikar, however, when Attarwala went to meet him, he said he did not know Baloch. Thus, Attarwala claimed he never received any money from Baloch.

He, however, claimed that a year later Baloch started to demand ₹4.5 crore from him at the instance of accused Chhota Shakeel. Rafiqali Sayyed, one of the accused, also went to meet Attarwala to collect the amount at Mira Road as it was demanded by Anwar, brother of Chhota Shakeel.

It was following this monetary dispute, Shakeel and his brother had allegedly hatched a conspiracy to eliminate him. However, before the accused could execute the plan, the crime branch apprehended three of them – Michael John Dsouza aka Raju Pille, Naim Faim Khan and Nitin Gopal Gurav – on April 19, 2016. The crime branch later arrested Sayyed.

All of them were then booked for hatching a plan to eliminate Attarwala. During the trial, the prosecution relied on the confessional statements of the accused and the recovery of the firearms from them. However, the accused retracted the statements, and the court refused to accept the prosecution case, primarily based on the confessions and acquitted the four accused.