Cops ‘lose’ evidence, gangster walks free

Another botched investigation. Another suspect walks free. On Tuesday, the sessions court acquitted a key gangster, for lack of evidence. The goof-up? Police ‘‘misplaced’’ five audio cassettes containing conversations of the accused, Rajkumar Ramdas Sharma alias Raju Chikna, with Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan. The tapes, recorded in 1991, were proof of a plot being hatched to kill a rival gangster.

Sessions Judge S.B. Munde acquitted Chikna since the charges levelled against him could not be proved. Rajesh Srivastav, Chikna’s advocate, said his client is a ‘‘Dubai businessman who doesn’t know Dawood or Rajan’’ and was falsely implicated.

This is the second such blow to the police in less than a year. Only in September last, another deportee from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Riyaz Siddiqui of the Dawood gang, walked free after Mumbai police failed to file a chargesheet. Then, the case papers went missing mysteriously.

Crime Branch officials are tight-lipped now, but at a press conference on September 29, 2003, they had grabbed credit for the deportation of Chikna from the UAE. A senior officer, on condition of anonymity, says it’s a colossal waste of Central funds, time, effort and paperwork. ‘‘The persons responsible for losing these cassettes should be punished,’’ he adds.