Gangster Ejaz Lakdawala planned to target Iqbal Mirchi’s brother

NEW DELHI: Gangster Ejaz Lakdawala was planning to target late underworld don Iqbal Mirchi’s Mumbai-based builder brother, Haroon, the intelligence bureau has informed Delhi police.
The revelation comes after the Delhi Police arrested Lakdawala’s aide, Mohammad Yusuf, who was allegedly out to kill two people, including the builder.
Sources identified the builder as brother of Dawood Ibrahim’s aide and 1993 Mumbai blasts accused Mirchi, who died in the UK in 2013.
They said ACP (crime) K P S Malhotra’s team has contacted Haroon to know about the threats he faced from Lakdawala and Yusuf.
Sources said Lakdawala’s plans to target the builder indicated his vindictiveness and plans to take over Ibrahim’s extortion racket.
The Delhi police are now probing Lakdawala’s “sleeper cells” and whether they were operating like Ibrahim’s henchmen.
Lakdawala’s modus operandi has been similar to Ibrahim, and his targets have had Bollywood connections.
Investigations have revealed Lakdawala was using hit men from north India like Ibrahim, who kill for petty sums and go underground easily. Yusuf had hired shooters from Jalandhar.
Lakdawala left Mumbai in 2000 as gangster Chhota Rajan sent his men abroad, and stayed in Malaysia and Kenya for sometime before moving to Bangkok. He made bases in Switzerland and Gulf countries as well.
Lakdawala was arrested in 2004 in Ottawa following an Interpol red corner notice. But he was soon released in absence of an extradition treaty at that time.
He is now mostly active in Mumbai, and was trying to build a base in Delhi as well as in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.