Have prima facie evidence to believe that cops behind threat calls by gangster Chhota Shakeel: SIT officers

Transcripts of a threat purportedly from gangster Chhota Shakeel have led the SIT probing the extortion case against ex-commissioner Param Bir Singh to a key question — at whose behest was the gangster operating?

Transcripts accessed by mid-day reveal the extent of threats made by gangster Chhota Shakeel to a city businessman, who features in the extortion case against former CP Param Bir Singh and other officers. As per the recordings being probed by Mumbai police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT), Shakeel threatened the businessman at the behest of Shyam Sunder Agarwal. Agarwal was booked under MCOCA for alleged connection with the gangster. But now, the SIT suspects the case against Agarwal, who is a complainant in the FIR against Singh, was fake.
 
Police said these audio recordings of Shakeel, gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s close aide, were latest. According to sources, the phone number from which the threat calls were made to the businessman, Sanjay Punamia, are in the records of the Mumbai Crime Branch and belongs to Shakeel. They added that Shakeel is using the number from Karachi to make extortion calls.

“The number belongs to Shakeel and the voice in the calls is also suspected to be his. But the voice needs to be authenticated with the real samples available with MCOCA court. But it has been delayed due to the lockdown,” an officer of Mumbai Crime Branch told mid-day.

Sources said the calls were made to Punamia allegedly by Shakeel between November 2016 to December 2016, then again between November 26 and November 30, 2020, to sign a deed of settlement with Agarwal (then Punamia’s business partner) for some properties.

Punamia registered a complaint with Juhu police, which filed an FIR against Agarwal in February 2021. Later, Crime Branch’s Unit 09 invoked Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

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Gangster Chhota Shakeel

The SIT under Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Nimit Goyal, which is probing the extortion case against Singh and others, is now investigating why the FIR was filed in February 2021 when the calls were made in 2016 and 2020. It suspects that the FIR against Agarwal is fake and was filed with the intention to extort money and to pressurise him to sign the deed with his disputed partner Punamia. “We have various recordings and digital evidence to believe that the FIR [against Agarwal] was filed with malicious intentions by the officers being probed by the SIT,” an officer privy to investigation said.

Marine Drive police, which has filed one FIR against Singh in the extortion racket, had last month arrested Punamia and one Sunil Jain. Police sources said that accused arrested and officers named in the extortion case might have asked Shakeel to take Agarwal’s name in his threat call so that they can frame him as and when needed.

“There is various reasons and prima facie evidence to investigate the same, because Agarwal was the complainant against Iqbal Kaskar (Dawood Ibrahim’s brother) in a case. Kaskar was arrested in 2017 by Thane Anti Extortion Cell,” said a police source. In 2017, Singh was the commissioner of the Thane police and former encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma was heading the Thane Anti Extortion Cell.

Sharma was recently arrested by the National Investigation Agency in connection with the Antilia bomb threat case and the alleged murder of businessman Mansukh Hiran.