Mumbai Crime: Slain matka king's brother held for Rs 60 lakh supari to kill widow

Police suspect Vinod Bhagat ordered a hit on his sister-in-law and her sister to either avenge his brother`s death or for property

The Mumbai Crime Branch has arrested five people, including deceased matka king Suresh Bhagat's brother Vinod Bhagat, for allegedly plotting to kill the former's widow Jaya Bhagat and her sister Asha Bhagat.

According to officers from the Crime Branch's Unit 9, Vinod had paid a contract killer in Manchester, the UK, to murder the two women. The contract killer, Bashir Suleman Begani alias Maamu alias Turk Talab, had then hired four people to eliminate the duo.

"Senior Inspector of unit 9 Nandkumar Gopale received an input that a man is coming to Khar Danda with firearms, following which we laid a trap and arrested him on December 18 and found photographs of the women. During the interrogation, he revealed about the conspiracy and the same has been averted successfully," said Joint Commissioner (crime) Milind Bharambe.

The accused arrested from Khar was identified as Mohammad Anwar Shabbir Darji, 31. The officers recovered two firearms, six live rounds, two mobile phones and a photograph from him.

During the investigation, the officers learnt that Vinod had hatched the conspiracy to murder Jaya, who is an accused in his brother's murder in June 2008.

A case of firing in Ahmedabad and one case under the Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act are registered against Vinod. "We found that Vinod contacted Bashir to eliminate Jaya and Asha. Bashir then contacted his supari killers in Uttar Pradesh and gave a contract of R60 lakh to kill the duo," an officer privy to the investigation said.

Based on the information, the Crime Branch arrested Ramveer Naresh Kumar Sharma, 39, from Bijnor in UP and his associates Mohammed Javed Ansari, 41, and Maksud Qureshi, 35, from Ahmedabad on December 21.