The Hindu : Dawood brother, aide remanded

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 21, 2003

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Dawood brother, aide remanded

By Arunkumar Bhatt

Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's younger brother, Iqbal Shaikh Kaskar, being taken to a court in Mumbai on Thursday. — Photo: Vivek Bendre

MUMBAI Feb. 20. The underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's brother, Iqbal Shaikh Kaskar, and his aide, Ezaz Pathan, were remanded to police custody today by two separate courts here.

After formally arresting them at the Sahar airport here on their arrival from Dubai on Thursday night, the Mumbai police handed over Pathan to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is prosecuting the accused in the Mumbai bomb blast cases of 1993.

The CBI produced Ezaz Pathan alias Mohammad Sharif in the TADA court at the high security Arthur Road Jail here where the Special Judge, Pramod Kode, remanded him to the CBI custody for seven days. The CBI told the court that Pathan was involved in the 1993 bomb blast conspiracy and had helped Dawood Ibrahim in executing it. In the past, the same court had issued a non-bailable warrant and red-corner notices to the Interpol for him.

He is expected to face charges of having facilitated the landing of the deadly RDX explosives, placing it in the city, supplying arms and ammunition to rioters and sending Muslim youth to Pakistan for terrorist training.

The Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, V.K. Sharma, meanwhile, remanded Iqbal Kaskar to police custody till March 6. Iqbal is likely to face several murder charges.

He is alleged to have eliminated another gangster, Amirzada, in Mumbai's Sessions Court in 1984 and to have `liquidated' Samad Khan, a nephew of drug-peddler, Karim Lala. Amirzada and Khan were involved in the murder of his elder brother, Sabir Kaskar.

Iqbal's lawyer, Shyam Keswani, said that his client was not extradited but had come home on his own. The UAE authorities had asked him to leave Dubai since he did not have a valid passport.

He had not sought a passport from any other country and was actually contesting his passport's cancellation in the Mumbai High Court.

The City Police Commissioner, Ranjit Singh Sharma, told mediapersons that legal opinion has been sought to see if both the gangsters could be booked under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act — the State's version of the POTA.

The Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister, Chhagan Bhujbal, who also holds the Home portfolio, said that the nabbing of the two gangsters would help control anti-national activities in Mumbai.

The deportation of Pathan and Iqbal has given a jolt to the city's underworld.

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