Police foil D-Gang contract killing believed have been ordered from Pakistan

RAJKOT: A paid assassin and three other people from Mumbai gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s gang were arrested on Saturday while they were on their way to kill a businessman from Gujarat’s Jamnagar on the underworld don’s brother Anees Ibrahim’s orders.

Rajkot, February 25

A paid assassin and three other people from Mumbai gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s gang were arrested on Saturday while they were on their way to kill a businessman from Gujarat’s Jamnagar on the underworld don’s brother Anees Ibrahim’s orders.

Anees Ibrahim, who has been looking after Dawood Ibrahim’s illegal business interests since his flight from the country after the Mumbai serial blasts of 1993, is believed to have offered Rs 10 lakh to Ramdas Rahane and the others to murder the businessman, Ashfaq Khatri, who owns a construction company and also had stake in a shipping business.

"Rahane and his three accomplices were coming to Rajkot in a private bus to kill the businessman," Rajkot city Deputy Commissioner of Police SR Odedara said. "We kept a close vigil near Kuvadava town on Rajkot-Ahmedabad national highway, as we had received inputs that four suspicious persons are travelling in a private bus from Maharashtra.” Police searched the three and found a pistol; six live cartridges; two knives; and fake number plates bearing registration numbers of Gujarat and Maharashtra in their luggage.

"It was also revealed during interrogation that they had planned to steal a vehicle after reaching Jamnagar, change the number plates with fake ones which they were carrying and execute the crime, before returning to Maharashtra," Rajkot police commissioner Anupamsinh Gehlot.

The assignment is believed to have come from Pakistan, where Dawood Ibrahim — who has been accused of having engineered the 12 serial blasts that tore through several places in Mumbai in 1993, killing 257 people — is believed to have fled.

Rahane faces several criminal charges in Mumbai and is believed to be involved in several shooting incidents in Mumbai, including the murder of a builder Manish Dholakiya at his office in 2011.

A guard was also killed in the incident.

Rahane has also spent some time in prison.

Police however have not disclosed the names of others involved in the latest planned murder.