Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore
Mangalore, Jun 18: The city crime branch (CCB) police have arrested an associate of underworld dons Ravi Poojary and Kali Yogish near Ullal railway station.
Mohammed Hanif alias Mohammed Ali alias Munna (30), a resident of Uppala, Kasargod was arrested on Tuesday June 17.
On July 9, 2013, some persons had barged into the house of Keshava B, a resident of Devipura, Talapady under Ullal police limits and assaulted his wife Sadhana. When Keshava tried to intervene, the assaulters tried to shoot him with a pistol. Police said that Hanif had supplied the pistol and the bullets to the accused in the case. The accused who assaulted Keshava's wife are absconding.
The police seized three bullets and two mobile phones from Hanif. He is an aide of Ravi Poojary and Kali Yogish, and is an accused in a number of cases, police said.
Hanif is the prime accused in a counterfeit currency case, wherein, in the year 2007 fake notes worth Rs 25 lac were smuggled from Dubai to Bangalore. The court granted him bail and he was released, but instead of appearing in court as needed, he went absconding.
He is also an accused in a theft case in Manjeshwar police station. He was arrested and granted bail, after which he disappeared once again.
In 2010, he allegedly aided the accused who had opened fire at businessman M T Mohammed at Bevinje. Mohammed was again attacked in 2013, and Hanif is said to have supplied pistol and bullets to the accused.
In 2011, he was arrested along with others for attempting to murder Prabhakar Chowta of Manjeshwar, on the directions of Ravi Poojary and Kali Yogish. Hanif was able to obtain bail order from the court and once again he went underground.
He is also accused of threatening a Manjeshwar-based businessman. In 2013, he allegedly supplied a car to Kalia Rafiq and others who attempted to murder a person by name Siddique. The same year, Kalia Rafiq and his gang had assaulted and shot dead a person by name Muttilif from Uppala. It was Hanif who had supplied the pistol and bullets to Kalia Rafiq in this case, police said.
On March 12 this year, he was seen plotting some crime in the company of Ravi Poojary associates Siddique, Nitin and Gurprasanna at Konaje, but he managed to escape from the police.
These apart, cases have been registered against Hanif by directorate of revenue intelligence (DRI), Bangalore, and in Vittal, Konaje, Manjeshwar, Kasargod, and Vidyanagar police stations.
The arrest operation was conducted as per the direction of city police commissioner R Hitendra, under the guidance of DCP (law and order) and Dr Jagadish, DCP (crime) Vishnuvardhan, and led by CCB inspector Valentine D'Souza. PSI Shyamsunder, police personnel Shashidhar Shetty, Ganesh M P, Venugopal, Chandrashekar, Dinesh Bekal, Rajendra Prasad, Sudhir Shetty, Abdul Jabbar, Mani M N and Tejakumar were part of the police team.