3 held for murder of emerging 'gang-star' Khada Wasim

Cops still on lookout for son of slain man's former boss

The Haveli police have arrested three people for the murder of 29-year-old Wasim Rafiq Shaikh alias Khada Wasim, who was an aide of dead land-grab mafia don Firoz Bengali. The police suspect Wasim was bumped off by members of Bengali's family because he was trying to fill the space created by the death of his boss.

The arrested people were identified as Ismail Rafique Shaikh (21), Irfan Chand Shaikh (24), Faruk Anwar Shaikh (22). The police are yet to arrest Bengali's son Intequab Bengali, but have arrested his two nephews and brother-in-law.

Police Inspector A D Patil (Crime) said the three had gone into hiding. "The police got a tip-off on their whereabouts and they were caught," he said. The arrested three were produced in court and remanded in police custody till May 24.

According to the police, seven others are absconding. The police suspect that after Wasim joined the Shiv Sena, his growing prominence in Kondhwa had disturbed the dead land mafia don's kin. Before Wasim's murder, the growing rift in the two factions of Bengali's gang had manifested itself on Sunday afternoon in the form of an assault by Wasim's boys on a teenaged boy from Bengali's relatives' side.

On Sunday night, Wasim was accosted and murdered. The police said about a dozen people, including Anwar Shaikh and Rafique Shaikh, blocked Wasim's car, forced him to step out, chased him as he tried to flee and assaulted him with a sickle.