Absconding former Dawood Ibrahim aide arrested after 20 years

The crackdown on gangster Dawood Ibrahim's aides by the Mumbai Crime Branch continues. After having absconded for almost 20 years, his former close aide, Nadeem Ghulam Mistry, was arrested by the Crime Branch Unit IX from Baroda in Gujarat. He was brought to Mumbai on Saturday night and produced in court yesterday.

Nadeem Ghulam Mistry

Recently, the brother-in-law of underworld don Chhota Shakeel, Salim Mohammad Iqbal Qureshi, alias Salim Fruit, (41), was also arrested by the Crime Branch in an extortion case.

The 53-year-old Mistry mainly worked with Phillu Khan alias Bakhtiyar Ahmed Khan. According to sources in the Crime Branch, Khan was one of the most trusted men of Dawood, and handled his narcotics business single-handedly. After the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts, gangster Chhota Rajan split with Dawood.

After Phillu Khan's name came up in the serial blasts case, Rajan decided to take revenge. In 1994, Khan was lured to a hotel room in Bangkok where he was tortured to death by Rajan's close aide Mangesh Pawar.

In retaliation, the D-gang killed Pawar in South Africa. Dawood tracked down Rajan in Bangkok in September 2000, where Chhota Shakeel led the hit. Posing as pizza deliverymen, they gunned down Rohit Varma, but Rajan escaped.

Meanwhile, a scared Mistry gave up his crime life and settled in Gujarat under a new identity.

Police says
Senior Police Inspector Mahesh Desai of Unit IX got a tip-off about Mistry hiding in Akota, Baroda. Desai sent a team of Inspector Rajesh Padvi and constables Rajendra Pednekar and Ganesh Sawant to Baroda 10 days back. The team had no picture or ID of Mistry. After 10 days of intense search, Mistry was nabbed on Saturday. He was operating a real estate business.

The cops said that Mistry was shocked to see Mumbai Police after so many years. He could not believe that he would be arrested after 20 years.