Attack ‘message’,Kaskar wasn’t target

Meanwhile,the two shooters apprehended by locals after a chase and arrested by the police shortly after the murder were produced before the Mazgaon Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday afternoon. They were remanded in police custody till May 26.

The accused,identified as Syed Bilal Mustafa Ali (29) and Indra Bahadur Khatri (27),are lodged in a Crime Branch lock-up at the Mumbai Police headquarters in the Crawford Market area.

“We are still probing several angles in the case and it will be too premature to say whether the attack was ordered by Chhota Rajan or some other rival gang. The two accused are giving conflicting statements that need to be verified. However,after they shot Arif,it would have been very easy for them to proceed into the building and kill Kaskar. Since they did not do that,it appears that Kaskar was not a target. The daring murder of Kaskar’s close aide at his doorstep seems to be a message from a rival gang to show what it is capable of,” said a senior Crime Branch officer,who did not wish to be named.

“If they wanted to murder Arif over some other dispute,the shooters would not have carried out the attack in a Dawood stronghold. They could have easily done it in Oshiwara,where Arif lived. However,an interesting angle to this case is that a highly sophisticated 0.45 mm pistol was used in the attack,which is not often used in crimes in the city,” said the officer.

Police sources involved in the investigations also said there was a possibility that the conspiracy behind the attack could have been hatched in Nepal. “We had not received any complaint or application from Kaskar in the recent past stating that there was any threat to his life or asking for any protection,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations) Rajkumar Vhatkar.

Also,while the two arrested men have claimed that they did not even know the name of their victim,the remand application submitted by the J J Marg police states there is also a possibility that the two were familiar with the deceased. “They addressed Bakr,who was seated on a chair outside Damarwala Building,exchanged pleasantries and then shot him. It is yet to be ascertained if the assailants were known to the deceased or Kaskar,” said public prosecutor Satish Patil while seeking their remand in court.

The police,in the remand application,claimed that even if the duo knew the target,the possibility of a “gang war” could not be ruled out.

The two have been booked for murder along with Sections 3,25 and 27 of the Arms Act. Besides three weapons,the police recovered some Nepali and Indian currency,a Nepali motor driving licence and a press identification card for a newspaper called Nagrik Dainik.