10 September,2016 01:28 PM IST | | Sailee Dhayalkar and Santosh Wagh
Cops are scrambling to look for Mumbai gangster Farid Tanasha's wife as she witnessed the killing of the sharpshooter in Chhota Rajan's gang is the only eyewitness who can positively identify the accused in court
Farid Tanasha (inset) was shot at his home on his own turf in Tilak Nagar in 2010
Farid Tanasha (inset) was shot at his home on his own turf in Tilak Nagar in 2010
Six years after Tilak Nagar gangster Farid Tanasha was shot dead in his bedroom, right before his wife's eyes, the police is now scrambling to find her so she can nail his killers in court. The sessions court hearing the murder trial had sent her a summons a month ago, but she failed to respond and has been untraceable since then.
Farid was a sharpshooter in Chhota Rajan's gang, and Tilak Nagar had become notorious as their base. The fact that Farid was murdered on his own turf, had shaken up the entire city with fears that gang wars were going to start afresh. His wife Reshma was one of the two eyewitnesses to the shootout that took place on June 2, 2010, allegedly carried out by a rival gang started by Bharat Nepali.
The Crime Branch prepared a chargesheet against 11 accused in September 2010, and the trial began this July. Currently, the trial is in the witness examination stage, and the court had already heard from seven witnesses. This includes the second eyewitness in the case - Farid's 14-year-old niece who was also in the room when he was killed.
The court heard from her last month, but when she was asked to identify the accused, she was unable to do so. One of the investigating officers in the case said, "She didn't identify the shooters in the court because she was too young (8 years old) when the incident occurred. But she had identified them when the identification parade was carried out."
Another witness Zube, who was one of Farid's close aides, identified the shooters in court and told the court that he saw the accused entering the house when he was going out for some work.
However, this implies that the only person who saw the killers in the act and can positively identify them is Reshma. She had also picked them out from the identification parade in 2010.
Sources in the Crime Branch said that following Farid's death, Reshma married someone in Delhi. But her current whereabouts are not known to either the cops or the Tanasha family, said sources.
When mid-day contacted Deputy Commissioner of Police Shashikant Satav (Detection 1), he only said, "I am not aware about this matter."
