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The National Investigation Agency (NIA) Monday detained gangster Chhota Shakeel’s aide Salim Qureshi alias Salim Fruit for questioning after carrying out searches at over 20 premises connected with fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim. The central agency also said it has seized several incriminating documents.
The Indian Express explains who Salim Qureshi is, and his background.
Salim Qureshi alias Salim Fruit is the brother-in-law of the gangster Chhota Shakeel, who is the henchman of Dawood Ibrahim. Known as Salim Fruit as his family business is of selling fruits in South Mumbai, he is also considered a close associate of Dawood Ibrahim. Chhota Shakeel is a gangster and a contract or supari killer who used to run an extortion racket through his henchmen.
Chhota Shakeel allegedly operates from Pakistan for Dawood Ibrahim. Sources say Salim Fruit had also visited the home of Chhota Shakeel in Pakistan three to four times.
Fruit was also accused of running an extortion racket for Shakeel and Ibrahim abroad in the early 2000 and he was deported to India by the UAE government in 2006. He was arrested in an extortion case related to Chhota Shakeel and charged under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) along with others. He was in prison till 2010.
In 2016, he was again arrested by the Anti-Extortion Cell of Mumbai police in connection with a case dating back to 2004. Salim Fruit’s aides had allegedly threatened a Central Mumbai based doctor and demanded Rs 25 lakh extortion. After negotiation, the amount was settled at Rs 10 lakh and the Crime Branch arrested two people red-handed when they had come to collect the money.
In February this year, the Enforcement Directorate arrested Maharashtra minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik and also questioned Salim Fruit a couple of times as part of its probe in a money laundering case linked to Dawood Ibrahim.
In his statement to the ED, Salim Fruit had said that he was a close associate of Haseena Parkar, Dawood Ibrahim’s sister who allegedly used to mediate in disputed properties to make money. Nawab Malik was accused of conniving with Haseena Parker’s driver to allegedly usurp a plot in Kurla.
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