Four shootouts shatter calm

MUMBAI, October 8: The brief lull in underworld activities in the city was broken today with a series of shootouts - one at Andheri, anot...

MUMBAI, October 8: The brief lull in underworld activities in the city was broken today with a series of shootouts 8211; one at Andheri, another at Chambur and two in the Kalyan-Dombivli area 8211; leaving two dead and two critically injured.

Two shootouts in Mumbai8217;s eastern and western suburbs, which left two hoteliers dead, happened within hours of each other. In the first incident, four unidentified men barged into Hotel Sai Vihar Bar on the Mahakali Cave Road around 3,30 pm and shot dead its 35-year-old owner Devi Prasad Hegde alias Deva. Strangely, soon after the assailants stepped out of the hotel, two men again came in and fired two more rounds at Hegde. Even as a bleeding Hegde slumped on the table, the assailants made good their escape in a white Maruti van and a rickshaw. Hegde was rushed to the Cooper Hospital where he was declared dead on admission.

A former associate of the Malaysia-based don Chhota Rajan8217;s top aide Guru Satam, Hegde had fallen out with Satam and had recently joined hands withSubhash Singh Thakur. The weapon used in the killing was a .9mm pistol which led DCP detection Param Bir Singh to believe that it was the handiwork of the Chhota Shakeel gang.

In the second shootout a few hours later, three unidentified men barged into Nav Grah Hotel at Tilak Nagar and shot dead its owner Bala Kotian. Brother of Chhota Rajan8217;s former aide, Mohan Kotian, Bala Kotian had sworn revenge on Rajan gang soon after the killing of his brother earlier this year.

Kotian had successfully managed to deal several debilitating blows to Rajan8217;s gang in the city. According to crime branch officers, Kotian was in touch with the Shakeel gang and used to tip them off about the movements of Rajan men.

Today8217;s bloodletting extended to the Kalyan-Dombivli area too, where two persons were shot at in separate incidents. While the first shootout took place at Waldhuni in Kalyan around midnight, the second took place at around 3 pm near the Kasturi Plaza shopping centre, Dombivili E. Mallesh Shetty, Senavibhag pramukh

of Waldhuni, was shot at by three unidentified assailants when he was sitting in an open verandah at his friend Raju Shanklesha8217;s house alongwith two others. Eyewitnesses said only one of the three gunmen opened fire at Mallesh from a close range. A profusely bleeding Mallesh was rushed to the Lokmanya Tilak Memorial General Hospital, Sion. His condition is reported to be critical.

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Police sources said Mallesh had close links with Chhota Rajan and the attack could have been a fallout out of the gang8217;s rivalry with the Manchekar group.

In the second shoot-out, three gunmen barged into the office of Ganesh Patil, a real estate developer at Kasturi Plaza, Dombivili, and opened fire from close range. Patil was hit above his right ear and was rushed to the Shirodkar hospital, where his condition is stated to be serious.

Patil is the nephew of Ratan Buva Patil, who heads a workers8217; union at the PAL-Pugeot plant at Khidkali here.