The Hindu

Bangalore, Jul 4: The State Government on Friday informed the Karnataka High Court that the Mangalore Shouth police had on June 30, 2009 filed a charge sheet in a court in Mangalore in the sensational Naushad Kashimji case.

Naushad, an advocate, was shot dead near his apartment in Mangalore, allegedly by hired gunmen on April 9 and the South India Cell for Human Rights Education (SICREM) had filed a petition in the High Court against the incident.

A Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice P.D. Dinakaran, and Justice V.G. Sabhahit, had on the last hearing asked the State to file the charge sheet before the court. In the chargesheet, the Mangalore police said that Ravi Poojary had hatched a conspiracy to eliminate Naushad as he had taken a brief to defend two of Dawood Ibrahim’s aides-Shek Abdul Rasheed Malbari and Shek Suhail Ismail, both of Mumbai. Ravi Poojary, the chargesheet said, was irked by the decision of Naushad to defend Malbari and Ismail and he gave a supari for Rs. 5 lakh to Dinesh Shetty and Pratap Shetty, both of Mangalore, to eliminate Naushad, the chargesheet stated.

The chargesheet said nine accused-Dinesh, Pratap, Ritesh, Subrahmanya, Shivaprasad, Ganesh, Rakesh Patel, Rahul and Ravi Shukwani are in judicial custody, while three others-Mukesh, Yogish and Ravi Poojary are absconding. It said while Dinesh was nabbed on April 23 at Belthangady, Pratap and Ritesh were arrested at Kavoor the next day.

Closing the petition, the Bench asked the Government to proceed with the case in accordance with the law.