Dawood aide held for JJ shootout in Mumbai

Dawood Ibrahim aide Yaseen Mansoor Mohammad Farooq, alias Farooq Takla, who was deported from Dubai last month and booked by the CBI in connection with the 1993 serial blasts case, was arrested by the Mumbai police crime branch on Thursday for his alleged involvement in the 1992 JJ shootout case.

Crime branch sources said the criminal intelligence unit (CIU) operations wing of the crime branch took Takla into custody from the Arthur Road jail, where he was lodged in connection with the serial blasts case, on Thursday afternoon. He was produced in a special court constituted under the (now defunct) Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention), Act, which remanded him in crime branch custody till April 27. As the JJ shootout case was filed under TADA, Takla would be tried under the Act.

A squad of 24 sharpshooters from the Dawood Ibrahim gang, led by Subhashsingh Thakur, had ambushed ward no. 18 of JJ Hospital on September 22, 1992, to avenge the death of Dawood’s brother-in-law Ibrahim Parkar by rival Arun Gawli gang. The squad ended up killing Gawli shooter Sailesh Haldankar and two police constables, who exchanged fire.

Crime branch sources said Takla, who lived in the vicinity of the hospital, had played a key role in sheltering the shooters, including Thakur, before and after the shootout. “He has been booked for aiding and abetting in the crime,” a senior crime branch officer said.