MUMBAI: A special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court has denied bail to Sarvar Maqsud Khan, an alleged key member of a crime syndicate linked to fugitive underworld don Chhota Shakeel, holding that prosecution had collected substantial evidence indicating he played an active and leading role in the kidnapping and assault of an alleged drug trafficker over a failed ₹50-lakh mephedrone (MD) deal.
Rejecting Khan’s bail plea on Thursday, Additional Sessions Judge Satyanarayan R. Navander held that the stringent twin conditions for bail under the MCOCA were not satisfied.
According to the prosecution, Sajid Electricwala, an alleged Surat-based drug trafficker, accepted ₹50 lakh from Khan to manufacture MD but failed to supply the drugs.
Subsequently, on June 12, 2025, Khan and his associates lured Electricwala and estate agent Shabbir Siddiqui to Alibaba Hotel in Andheri before abducting them, taking them to multiple locations, assaulting and threatening them to recover the money. Police later invoked MCOCA after it was alleged that the accused were members of a gang linked to Chhota Shakeel.
Rejecting the defence’s contention that the matter arose out of a commercial dispute, the court held that the prosecution material prima facie showed the victims were abducted, wrongfully confined, assaulted and intimidated to recover the money, and that such allegations could not be treated as a mere civil or commercial dispute.
The judge relied on statements from the informant and victim, who alleged Khan had called them to the hotel where they were abducted, and on a video allegedly recovered from his mobile phone showing the victims tied up, stripped, humiliated and assaulted in the presence of the applicant and other accused. The court described the footage as “a significant piece of incriminating electronic evidence,” indicating Khan’s active and leading role.
{{/usCountry}}The judge relied on statements from the informant and victim, who alleged Khan had called them to the hotel where they were abducted, and on a video allegedly recovered from his mobile phone showing the victims tied up, stripped, humiliated and assaulted in the presence of the applicant and other accused. The court described the footage as “a significant piece of incriminating electronic evidence,” indicating Khan’s active and leading role.
{{/usCountry}}It also referred to call records, WhatsApp chats, a test identification parade in which the victims identified Khan and a co-accused’s confession recorded under MCOCA, which the court said substantially corroborated the prosecution case when read with the other evidence.
While the defence pointed to unexplained delays in lodging the FIR and alleged procedural lapses, the court held that those issues would be tested during trial.
Accepting the prosecution’s explanation that the victims’ delay in reporting the offence stemmed from their fear after being threatened, it held that the evidence against Khan was “neither fabricated nor inherently improbable.”
Holding that it could not find any grounds to believe Khan was not guilty of the alleged offences or unlikely to commit an offence if released, the court rejected his bail application.
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