Gangster Chhota Shakeel and Dawood aide Riyaz Bhati booked for extorting builder

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Thane's Anti-Extortion Cell (AEC) has busted another of D-Company's extortion rackets, booking Underworld gangster Chhota Shakeel and Dawood aide Riyaz Bhati along with five to seven others. The case has been registered at Shivaji Nagar police station in Ambernath.

According to sources, the complainant builder, Surajit Rayon, a resident of Ambernath, had approached Pradeep Sharma, encounter specialist and senior inspector, AEC, with a complaint about a 2012 case. A senior AEC officer said the builder had been forced to speak to Shakeel over the phone and then kidnapped and brought to Andheri. "We are checking the documents and verifying facts," added the officer. Confirming the case, Sharma said, "The extortion had been going on since 2012. We are investigating the matter."

The case
Rayon had taken over the redevelopment of Andheri Stadium View Society from the MHADA in 2012 and made Kamal Jadwani a partner. Jadwani, however, made Bhati and Afghan Khan as partners. They all started pressuring Rayon to get out of the project, forcing him to speak to Shakeel over the phone many times. The 4,500-sqft project worth Rs 50 crore, which was in Rayon's name, was allegedly usurped by Bhati and Khan.

After a lookout notice was issued against Bhati, a close aise of Dawood Ibrahim, intelligence agencies had tipped off the police about his arrival in Mumbai, and he was arrested in October 2015 from the Sahar airport with two passports. Sources from Thane Crime Branch said that after he was released, he left India.

Who is Bhati?
Bhati is a builder and used to operate Indian Sports Academy. He has many serious offences registered against him, including a firing case in Khandala in 2007 and a land-grabbing case in Malad in 2009. He was accused of organising a private party in Dubai with Iqbal Atarwala and Ajay Gosalia alias Ganda for Dawood and his associate Areef Bhaijaan. Bhati used the academy as a front to convert Shakeel's hawala money into white. Sources added Bhati was involved in the hawala business when D-Company had a strong hold in Mumbai. It is said he is still putting Dawood's money in hawala.

In December 2017, Anti-extortion cell officials of the Mumbai Crime Branch arrested a 30-year-old man from New Delhi in connection with a complaint filed by a Khar-based businesswoman, who claimed that she got an extortion call for Rs 1 crore from a person claiming to have links to gangsters Dawood Ibrahim, Chhota Shakeel and Fahim Machmach.

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