4 min readNew DelhiDec 19, 2024 10:12 AM IST
First published on: Dec 19, 2024 at 06:00 AM IST
Over the past few weeks, a spate of extortion calls to businessmen in Delhi and NCR had kept citizens as well as the police on their toes. Police knew that gangsters, some of them in jail, were behind them but couldn’t ascertain how they knew whom to target.
Police have now solved the puzzle. It was two members of different gangs, lodged in the district jail at Rajasthan’s Dausa, who were passing on the information that they got from a man on the outside, said officers.
One of the men was Mehtab Kana, a member of the erstwhile Mukim Kala gang, said a senior police officer said Wednesday. The second was Sumit Yadav, an associate of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.
Lodged in Dausa jail, the officer said, Kana has allegedly been providing the Lawrence Bishnoi syndicate tip-offs about businessmen who could be extorted in Delhi-NCR, he added.
Hailing from Balwa Gurjan village in UP’s Shamli, 31-year-old Kana — who also goes by the aliases Jeeva and Pradhan — has been booked in cases of murder, attempt to murder and robbery in UP and Rajasthan and is serving a life term in one of the cases, the officer added.
Police said Kana was arrested in 2015 in connection with a November 2014 murder. He was lodged in a jail in Jaipur till early 2023, before being shifted to Dausa district jail. “In the interim, in 2021, Mukim Kala was killed in a Chitrakoot jail during a gang war. Since then, Kana has taken charge of the gang,” the officer said.
It was at Dausa jail in 2023, the officer claimed, that Kana allied his gang with the Lawrence Bishnoi-Hashim Baba syndicate. “During this time, he came in contact with Yadav who was initially lodged at a high-security prison in Ajmer in connection to a murder case before being shifted to the Dausa jail,” the officer said.
Police also found that the information was being passed on by Kana’s relative.
“The relative, Irfan, lived in Delhi’s Kabir Nagar. Kana asked Irfan to visit prominent places and markets in Delhi and get details of businessmen making huge profits. Irfan would get phone numbers of these businessmen and give them to Kana, who, in turn, would share them with Yadav,” the officer said, adding that Yadav would then forward the details to Rohit Godara, an aide of Lawrence Bishnoi.
Police said Irfan’s role came to light when a school owner at Jamia Nagar filed a complaint at Shaheen Bagh police station on November 5, claiming he received a call from Godara demanding Rs 2 crore. “Irfan and his associate had passed on the details of the school owner to Kana. Technical surveillance revealed Irfan used to contact Kana and Yadav in Dausa jail frequently,” the officer said.
On November 30, Irfan and his associate were arrested by a team of the Special Cell (New Delhi Range), police said.
This was the second businessman whose information Irfan had passed on to Godara, said police. “In September, a jeans trader in Vikaspuri received an extortion call from Godara, which was also based on Irfan’s information,” the officer said.
Police said Irfan (27), who was in the jeans trading business, didn’t have a previous criminal record. “His brother is currently lodged in Mandoli jail, and was in contact with members of the Bishnoi-Baba gang. Through him, Irfan got in touch with Kana and Yadav,” the officer said.
After Irfan’s arrest, Delhi Police has requested for production of Kana from Rajasthan, a police officer said.
The officer said Kana was also instrumental in facilitating an alliance between Mukim Kala and gangster Anil Dujana in 2015; the latter arranged weapons, including AK 47, for the gang.
The info
was being provided
to Lawrence Bishnoi syndicate, says Police 
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