Irani gang member accused in 56 cases arrested

Faizal Shaikh aka Alimama has several warrants, including five production warrants and four non-bailable warrants, pending against him. The Thane police have even invoked stringent provisions of the MCOCA against him and others in a case registered with the Narpoli police in Bhiwandi

MUMBAI: A member of Irani gang, known for chain-snatching and cheating, was nabbed on Sunday night. The accused, Faizal Shaikh aka Alimama, has 56 crimes registered against him at 20 police stations in Mumbai and Thane.

Irani gang member accused in 56 cases arrested

Shaikh also has several warrants, including five production warrants and four non-bailable warrants, pending against him. The Thane police have even invoked stringent provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against him and others in a case registered with the Narpoli police in Bhiwandi.

“We were on the lookout for him for several offences registered against him, the latest being a chain-snatching case registered in April 2022. The last offence registered against him was another chain-snatching case that took place in Khopoli a couple of months ago,” an officer from MIDC police said. The officer added that this was their fourth attempt at arresting Shaikh.

Whenever the police or even crime branch officers tried to arrest anyone from the Irani Wadi in Ghatkopar West, the attempts were foiled by locals. “This is the only locality within Mumbai city where the members of the Irani gangs live. Other big colonies around Mumbai are in Ambivali and Mumbra,” a police officer said.

The officer spoke of a case in 2020 when a team from Vinoba Bhave Nagar police went to the locality in pursuit of Shaikh. “The locals opened fire on the police team and drove them out of their colony,” he recalled. In other instances, he said local women gheraoed the policemen and gave the accused a chance to slip away.

Shaikh, whom the police had been looking for since the last 16 months, was previously living in Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh at his in-laws’ place. However, the locals kept telling the police that he was somewhere else in Madhya Pradesh or Uttar Pradesh. “After we got a tip-off about Shaikh coming back to Mumbai, we posted a lot of plain-clothes personnels around the locality. On Sunday evening, we got to know that Shaikh would be alone at home that night,” the officer added.

The police then detained all the people who could leak information about their movements and confiscated their phones. “Shaikh had created a sort of fortress around him with men stationed at all entry points of the area. He also had CCTV cameras set up on all sides of his residence. Even if a police team ever comes close to his house, he will jump to the neighbouring building from the terrace of his two-storey house to evade an arrest,” the officer said.

On Sunday evening, the plain-clothes officers kept moving closer to Shaikh’s house surreptitiously. By the time Shaikh noticed the team, they were too close to miss him, an officer said.

“He tried to run off to the steps of his house. We gave him a chase and caught him. His last attempt to free himself was to use a knife to scare the policemen away. However, the cops were able to overpower the accused and bring him to the police station,” he added.

On Monday morning, Shaikh was produced before a metropolitan magistrate court, which remanded him in judicial custody.