Mumbai: Man, pretending to be an aide of Gangster Shakeel to extort money, held

The Anti-Extortion Cell (AEC) of the Mumbai Crime Branch on Tuesday arrested a 25-year-old man, who claimed to be an ‘associate’ of the gangster Chhota Shakeel to extort money from a businessman.

According to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Prevention) of Crime Branch, Balsingh Rajput, the man, who identifies himself as ‘Billo’, had made several calls to the victim between July 9 to July 11.

In his calls, Billo frequently threatened to shoot the victim lest he refuses to pay the demanded sum. During the calls, he had said, “I am an associate of (Chhota) Shakeel, Billo. By Tuesday, you will have to send me Rs. 35 lakh or I will shoot you. We run the entire Mumbai, so you be alert!”

“We had created an operation to track the accused. It was on the pipeline before he fell into the trap we had laid,” said Rajput. The accused was arrested on Tuesday at Oshiwara by the police.

The original identity of Billo, as per police sources, is Sadiq ul-Haq. Sadiq previously worked for the victim as an employee. He enacted the entire act to make fast money. “The accused wanted to get married to his partner and was in dire need of money to buy a house. In order to make fast money for the same, he planted the entire Shakeel act,” said a source.

Sadiq was taken into custody and sent to the remand home till July 25 for extortion and other relevant sections under the Indian Penal Code.