India, Pak in Thai legal battle over gangster

MUMBAI: Pakistan has filed an appeal in a Thailand court seeking custody of Chhota Shakeel aide Mudassar Hussain Sayyed, alias Munna Zingada (50), as, it claims, he is a Pakistani national, after the same court had ruled in favour of New Delhi’s request that the gangster be extradited to India.

Sources said the Pakistan government filed the appeal last month challenging the Thai court’s ruling in August that Zingada was an Indian national. Originally from Jogeshwari, Zingada had attempted, at Shakeel’s behest, to kill rival gangster Chhota Rajan in Bangkok in 2000.

Zingada was arrested after the incident and sentenced to 10 years in prison. After he completed his jail term in 2012, India and Pakistan had fought in the Thai court over his nationality.

Sources said Pakistan’s appeal may further prolong the legal battle. “We are told the Pakistan government has submitted forged documents, including a local birth and school-leaving certificate. We placed concrete evidence such as DNA reports and his childhood photos before the Thai court, which was convinced. Now we are hoping the court will reject Pakistan’s appeal,” a senior police officer said.

Sources in Mumbai police said the Dawood gang may want Zingada out of the way before he is sent to India and might attempt a hit. Sources say the gang fears his return to India may result in him revealing information about Dawood and his aides and providing inside information about the gang, its strategy and equations within the gang.

Zingada’s extradition is expected to help India establish Dawood’s presence in Pakistan. An intelligence source said this is precisely why Islamabad has left no stone unturned in attempts to secure his deportation by trying to prove he is a Pakistani national.

Pakistan has been claiming Zingada as a citizen as he had entered Thailand on a Pakistani passport bearing the name “Mohammed Saleem”.

Rajan’s aide, Rohit Verma, was killed in the Bangkok attack, and after Zingada was arrested and sentenced, the Mumbai crime branch team had submitted a dossier on him before the Thai court listing his criminal activities in the city between 1994 and 1997 along with “incontrovertible proof of his Indian nationality”, including passport details, fingerprints and DNA samples of his kin.

Zingada gained notoriety after he shot dead a key member of gangster-turned-politician Arun Gawli’s political party, the Akhil Bharatiya Sena, in October 1997.