4 held, UP cops say plan to attack Himesh foiled

The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force on Wednesday claimed to have busted a plan to attack singer Himesh Reshammiya and filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi by arresting four members of Mumbai-based don Ejaz Lakdawala’s gang.

The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) on Wednesday claimed to have busted a plan to attack singer Himesh Reshammiya and filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi by arresting four members of Mumbai-based don Ejaz Lakdawala’s gang.

The STF said the men, who belong to Mumbai, had been held from Lucknow’s neighbouring district Barabanki and several weapons seized from them, including two revolvers, one pistol and one country-made pistol. They said the weapons were to be used in attack on the two Bollywood personalities.

UP DGP Vikram Singh said the gang also planned to kidnap a Lucknow-based Gutkha businessman. “Lakdawala had tasked the four arrested persons with procuring weapons and delivering the same to two sharpshooters of his gang. The sharpshooters were to target Reshammiya and Santoshi. Lakdawala had demanded extortion money from the two,” Singh said at a press conference. He identified the shooters as Imran and Suhail.

Lakdawala had reportedly provided the four Rs 50,000 for their visit to UP to procure the weapons. Later the DGP presented Anis Radiowala, saying he was a close associate of Lakdawala. “I was tasked by Lakdawala to collect weapons from UP. Lakdawala had given me a call from Australia,” Anis told reporters.

Anis said Reshammiya was on the hit list as he had refused to pay extortion money to Lakdawala. “I was asked to deliver the weapons to two shooters in Mumbai. Their job was to target Reshammiya and other targets,” Anis claimed.

The police said Anis had told them that Lakdawala earlier planned to kill Reshammiya inside the office of a prominent TV channel. “Reshammiya is a judge on a talent show. The plan was to get a boy selected for the show and then use him to attack Reshammiya. But the boy failed to get selected,” the DGP told reporters.

The DGP added that Anis was earlier in the gangs of Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan. “About a year back he joined the gang of Ejaz Lakdawala,” he added.

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According to the DGP, Anis was also used by Lakdawala to collect ransom money from the father of one kidnapped victim. “The Lakdawala gang recently kidnapped the son of Lakdawala’s cousin Parvej Lakdawala. The gang collected Rs 1 crore as ransom. Anis collected part of the money and sent the same to Imran Radiowala in Bangkok through hawala.”

Apart from Anis, the other men arrested have been identified as Mohd Rahim Khan, a resident of Jogeshwari in Mumbai, Isharat of Amrit Nagar in Thane, and Namdeo alias Sagar of west Mumbai. Anis reportedly lives in Jogeshwari West Mumbai.

The police also seized a Qualis besides a cellphone and live cartridges from them.