Tags:
Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, Dec 13: Mohan Rawle, former Shiv Sena MP and Arun Gawli’s sympathiser, was the target of Chotta Shakeel’s sharp shooter, Sadique Ismail Sheikh alias Bada Raju who was killed in an encounter by the Mumbai police on Friday night.
According to top police sources, they had definite information that an attempt would be made on Rawle’s life on Friday between 6 pm and 8 pm when Rawle was scheduled to be at a function of Raj Thackeray’s Shiv Udyog Sena at Maharshi Dayanand College, Parel. The meeting in itself had assumed significance because Uddhav Thackeray was also expected to attend it, and it would have been the first time in a long time that the two second-generation Thackeray’s would have shared the dais.
In the event, both of them were advised to stay away from the meeting and Rawle’s security tightened. Though police officers refused to say it on record, Rawle himself confirmed it to The Indian Express: “Yesterday the police deployed a special squad and vans for my protection when I was attending the function at Maharshi Dayanand College.”
Rawale further said that he has been vociferously demanding the extradition of Dawood Ibrahim which might have irritated Chhota Shakeel. “I have been receiving threatening calls from them (gangsters) but it is a part of being a Shiv Sena leader. I have never bothered about these threats,” he said.But police sources believe that Rawale’s open support to Dawood’s arch enemy Arun Gawli may have had more to do with the aborted attempt. When Gawli was arrested by the Mumbai police a few months ago, Rawle, then a sitting MP of the Sena, sat on a hunger strike in the police station for nearly a week and has never concealed his soft corner for the underworld don.
Another close associate and president of Gawli fledgling political party, the Akhil Bharatiya Sena, was shot dead in broad daylight by Shakeel’s men in October.
Sadique was involved in virtually all of Shakeel’s criminal activities in the city in the past two years including the gruesome murder of a jeweller from Mahim, Poonam Chand Jain, the financier of Chhota Rajan group Prakash Naik alias Gotya who was killed at Oshiwara three months ago and a Gawli aide, Rafiq Patni.
