Politicians to be probed for links with Dawood''s brother

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, September 19

Leaders of at least two political parties are likely to be questioned in the next few days over their possible links to an extortion racket run by gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s brother Iqbal Kaskar.

Kaskar and two of his associates were arrested on Monday on complaint that he was trying to extort cash and properties from a Thane-based builder.
 “Some politicians and local corporators will also be questioned in connection with the extortion case,” Parambir Singh, Thane’s Commissioner of Police, told reporters here on Tuesday.

Police sources say at least one prominent leader of the Nationalist Congress Party from Thane figures in the extortion case.

Singh said the police were questioning Kaskar on whether Dawood Ibrahim was directly or indirectly involved in the extortion racket.

Three more people, including two builders from Thane, were being questioned for their links with Kaskar, sources said.

According to the complaint filed by the builder, Kaskar had allegedly demanded and got from him four flats and Rs 30 lakh as protection money, Singh said. He approached the police after the gangster tried to extort more money from him.

The two builders who were arrested along with Kaskar were passing on information about other developers in the area to Kaskar. Singh said the police may apply the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act against those arrested in the case.

A court sent Kaskar and his associates to police custody for eight days.

Kaskar was deported to India from United Arab Emirates in 2003 in connection with a murder case. He was subsequently acquitted.