Wanted gangster with 37 cases against him arrested from Bangalore

The Mumbai Police Crime Branch has arrested an alleged gangster wanted for at least 37 serious criminal cases in Mumbai. The accused was also under the scanner of the Narcotics Control Bureau in 2019.

According to Mumbai Crime Branch officers, the accused, Iliyas Abdul Aziz Khan alias Iliyaz Bachkana, was arrested from a hotel in Hosur, Karnataka by a team of personnel from the Crime Branch’s Criminal Intelligence Unit (CIU) on Saturday, and brought to Mumbai.

Officials said that the most recent case against Bachkana was registered last year, when three men armed with iron rods barged into the Reay Road office of businessman Sarfaraz Luladia on April 30, 2021 and attacked him. Two of the three men managed to flee the scene while the third, Wajid Sheiikh, was overpowered by Luladia’s employees and handed over to the Byculla police.

The police went on to arrest the other two accused, identified as Karim Khan and Saif Sheikh, and also arrested builder Hifzur Rehman in the case. Investigations revealed that Rehman had given a contract to Bachkana to kill Luladia, and the three attackers were acting on Bachkana’s instructions. The police invoked the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the case.

“We received a tip off stating that Bachkana was hiding in Hosur, and sent a team to work on this information. In collaboration with the local police, our team picked up Bachkana from a hotel in Hosur on Saturday and brought him to Mumbai. He was subsequently handed over to the Byculla police for further investigation,” a senior Crime Branch officer said.

Apart from this case, Bachkana has 36 other cases registered against him in Mumbai, which include crimes like murder, attempt to murder, robbery, drug trafficking and possession of illegal arms. The concerned police stations will soon be seeking Bachkana’s custody for interrogation in their respective cases, officials said.