Celebrating a rival’s death cost Mangaluru gangster his life in a 4 am highway ambush, police probe reveals

Hussain had reportedly celebrated Noufal’s death, and this is alleged to have enraged Noufal’s associates in India and abroad, who allegedly then plotted and executed Hussain’s murder.

“These fellows (rival gang members) already had a grudge against him (Hussain) and they attacked him earlier also. The deceased celebrated the death of one of the gang members, and that is also a motive,” a senior Karnataka police official said.

The police identified the accused in the Hussain murder as Rifath Ali, Juttu Ashfaq, Khaleel, Shakir, Irfan and Rizwan, and a key facilitator of the murder, identified as Irshad, who allegedly provided lodging and transport facilities for the main assailants. Mangaluru Police Commissioner Sudheer Reddy declared the arrests on April 9.

The Mangaluru police said that the gang had carried out extensive efforts to cover their tracks, with associates based abroad providing foreign SIM cards and OTPs generated for usage in the phones used for communications during the murder conspiracy and execution.

“They have friends abroad. The ones abroad were giving numbers and OTPs for the gang to use in Mangaluru. They will also be arrested eventually,” the senior police official said.

Some of the accused who are currently in Gulf countries allegedly arranged finances, cars, monitoring of police movements, and international phone numbers for use of encrypted communication applications, the police said.

The Thokkottu flyover murder

Hussain, who has a criminal history in Mangaluru, was found dead beside his motorcycle on the Thokkottu flyover on March 27 after he left his home in the Talapady village of Ullal taluk at 3.30 am to go to the Mangalore dock where he worked.

Though the crime scene looked like an accident spot, Hussain was found to have been hacked to death. The Mangaluru police investigations in the case revealed that a gang of six assailants allegedly knocked down his motorcycle on the flyover—which reportedly had no CCTV coverage near the crime scene—before hacking Hussain to death.

A Kerala-registered Toyota Innova, allegedly used to cause the accident, was found abandoned near a village in the neighbouring Vitla police limits on the day of the murder.

Following the murder, Hussain’s teenage son filed a police complaint stating that his father was knocked down from his Enfield Bullet motorcycle and hacked to death with sharp weapons by unidentified men. The complaint named Hussain’s rival, Rifath Ali, as one of the possible suspects.

Hussain had reportedly shown no remorse last year when Noufal, a long-time rival at the docks, was found dead on a railway track. Noufal and his associates had allegedly been involved in an attempt to murder Hussain in 2022 over a financial dispute.

Hussain was involved in the fish business at the Mangaluru dock and had nine criminal cases against him in the last two decades. In the past, he was also a part of the ‘rowdy lists’ in Mangaluru.