Shakeel man shot down at Dadar

But when challenged, the gangster allegedly opened fire on the policemen. He was killed in the return of fire and died before admission to KEM hospital. The police pumped 10 bullets into him including four on his chest, one on his knee, two on the left side of his forehead and another one of the right side. One policeman was also injured in the thigh. Evening peak-hour traffic was disrupted on the busy road for about an hour but normalcy returned with swiftness. The aartis and festivities at a pandal set-up to celebrate Datta Jayanti, few metres from the spot, continued uninterrupted and most people the reporter spoke to including a chaiwalla and the chowkidar of the building across which the encounter took place admitted to having heard "sharp staccato sounds" but none of them appeared to have seen anything.

Mohammad Sadiq alias Bada Raju was a recent entrant to the underworld. He joined the Chhota Shakeel gang just two years ago and soon emerged as his ace henchman. He was involved in virtually all the Shakeel hits in the city in the past two years including the gruesome murders 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. But without doubt Sadique’s most high-profile killing was the daylight murder of the ABS chief, Dabholkar. In fact it was this killing that finally set the police on his trail. Till Dabholkar’s killing not much had been known about his modus-operandi except for the fact that he always used a black Yamaha for his assignments. But the crime branch then prepared an extensive dossier on him and waited for their chance.

According to a senior police official, "This is going to be a big blow for Shakeel." Justifying the killing the officer said that since Sadique was a relative newcomer, police did not have any case records against him. "In the absence of those, an encounter was the best way to get rid of him."

For the Mumbai police, mired in litigation over it’s record of excessive encounter deaths, today’s killing might only give additional fodder to the human rights activists. This is the 72nd encounter death this year but today’s took place on a busy street at a busy hour unlike most others which have taken place in the wee hours.