Thane cops arrest gangster Chhota Shakeel’s aide from Mumbai for 20-year-old murder

In a surprise move, the Thane Anti-Extortion Cell (AEC) arrested 51-year-old Tariq Abdul Kareem Parveen, a close aide of gangster Chhota Shakeel, in connection with a 1998 murder case, in which he allegedly plotted to kill his business partner Mohammed Ibrahim.

In its press release, the AEC said 38-year-old Ibrahim had been shot at Kismat Colony in Mumbra by a Shaukat Khilji, who was accompanied by six to seven people, following a dispute over cable business with Parveen.

What comes as a surprise is the AEC’s claim that Parveen, who has been living close to the Mumbai police commissioner’s office near GT Hospital in south Mumbai since 2004, has been on the run ever since.

Parveen was deported to India from Dubai in 2004 and arrested by the Mumbai police in connection with the illegal construction of Sara-Sahara shopping complex in Crawford Market, built allegedly at the behest of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim by his brother Iqbal Kaskar. He was charged under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). However, he was acquitted along with Kaskar, later. He was also arrested for allegedly attempting to extort money from a city-based developer Riyaz Bhatti, but he was acquitted in that case too.

Much later, in 2015, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, along with the Uttar Pradesh police, arrested Parveen for a criminal case registered against him in Hazratganj.

Sources in the Mumbai police said Parveen has been in Mumbai since his arrest and acquittal, and that he has never been on the run.

On Friday, however, Pradeep Sharma, reinstated encounter specialist and senior police inspector of Thane AEC, said: “We got to know about Parveen’s presence in south Mumbai through our informers, and a team was rushed to the spot. We sent officers to cover all exits so that he could not escape.”

Sharma added: “We are questioning Parveen, and we suspect his hand in many other crimes. We have a few leads on his link in cases where he is indirectly connected, and we are verifying it.”