Apr 16 2016 : The Times of India (Mumbai)

`EXTORTION' CASE - Shakeel's relative taken into custody

Ahmed Ali
Mumbai:


The anti-extortion cell of the city crime branch on Friday arrested Chhota Shakeel's cousin sister, Tabassum Shaikh, and two of her aides in a case of alleged extortion.
While the crime branch claimed that she played a key role in threatening and forcibly taking away gold jewellery along with Shakeel's brother-in-law, Arif Aboobakar alias Bhaijaan, her lawyer claimed it was a bogus case.

Tabassum and her aides, Akash Parocha (31) and Sam eer Shaha (40), were remanded in police custody till March 16.

A complaint was filed by an import-export car tyre trader, Ammar Turkiya, from Sion, against Tabassum, who had given him Rs 15 lakh for business. Subsequently , he said, he returned the money , but Tabassum insisted he pay more as interestprofit.

The police claimed that Tabassum, with Bhaijaan's help, started harassing him and demanded money .




Apr 16 2016 : The Times of India (Mumbai)

HIGH-LEVEL POLICE PROBE HINTS AT SABOTAGE - Nine scrap dealers held for Deonar blazes

Ahmed Ali
Mumbai:


The Deonar police on Friday evening arrested nine scrap dealers for the January 28 and March 20 blazes at the dumping ground at Deonar.
Sources said that a probe headed by additional commissioner of police (east region) Manoj Lohiya prima facie found that they were not accidental but the handiwork of the scrap dealers.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had in February , after the January 28 fire, ordered a high-level probe by the additional commissioner of police. The police said Lohiya's probe had hinted at sabotage.

The scrap dealers who do not have any licence or authority to conduct business used to send minor children to collect scrap, the police said. The nine dealers have their shopsgodowns adjoining the dumping ground compound wall. The police said the dealers, who will be produced before court on Saturday , have been booked under various sections for negligence, causing damage to public property , mischief by fire and act to hurt somebody under the Indian Penal Code.

The children, on orders from their employers, used to light fires so that the garbage burns, and it used to get easy for them to pick up leftover metal,“ said a police officer. Deputy commissioner of police (zone VI) Sangramsingh Nishandar confirmed the arrests.

The scrap dealers' names cropped up during inquiries and recording of statements of several independent witnesses.

Sources said that the dealers will be interrogated about who sent the children to light the fire on March 20 at the Deonar dumping ground. The fire started around 10am, by afternoon, thick smoke covered areas like Rafiq Nagar and Baba Nagar adjoining the dump, and it moved towards Navi Mumbai.By March 21 morning, smoke had rea ched Wadala, though the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said it had brought the fire under control to an extent around 4.30am. Fresh flames were reported once again on the evening of March 21.

Earlier on January 28, at 3am, a fire broke out at the dumping ground. The smoke in nearby areas forced schools to remain shut. The fire was finally extinguished on February 5.

The fire had led to health hazards for residents and there was an increase in air pollution.

Fire-fighters were deployed at the spot till April 2. The BMC had filed an FIR against unknown persons, suspecting sabotage. Cooling operations continue at the dump yard.




Apr 12 2016 : The Times of India (Mumbai)

Gang lays 1.5-km underground pipe to steal from BPCL depot

Ahmed Ali

Mumbai





Oil Theft Lasted 9 Months, Cops Sniff Inside Help

Smuggling of oil on the high seas may be common in Mumbai but it is perhaps for the first time that police have come across a case where a gang rigged a 1.5-inch diameter pipe at the BPCL's supply system at Sewri. The pipe ran for 1.5 km and was used to pilfer base oil--used to manufacture greases, motor oil and metal processing fluids. The city police, who had been investigating the case si nce October when they first unearthed the fraud, on Monday decided to invoke the stringent MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) against 11 people, six of whom are still on the run. The modus operandi of the gang was to steal the base oil and then transfer it using a tempo in the middle of the night.BPCL has said the gang stole 10,000 litres in nine months.“We believe this is the tip of the iceberg. It also poses a security risk. The extent of the damage is yet to be ascertained,“ a police officer said.
The gang drilled a small hole into the underground Bharat Petroleum pipe and fixed a pipe to it outside the plant.“From there they extended it by around 200 metres to Gangabowdi on port trust land. “Here, they used an electric motor to draw the oil and transported it another 1.5km through a pipe before discharging it into drums,'' said the officer. The pipe also passed un derneath a railway track meant for goods trains to transport oil from refineries. BPCL has a storage facility in Sewri and transports oil to its refinery in Trombay . Police said the gangsters had threatened a railway guard when he tried to stop them from digging.
The base oil was then sold at half the prevailing market price. Police raided the place and found more than 10,000 litres of base oil illegally stored in drums said, deputy commissioner of police (port zone) Kiran Chavan. Police suspect the involvement of security officers at BPT given that it would be difficult to sustain such a clandestine operation for 9 months without being noticed. Sources said that it will be the first time that Mumbai police are invoking MCOCA on the oil mafia.
It will be a major blow to several small gangs operating since the exit of oil mafia Mohammed Ali after he was arrested in the murder of his rival Chand Madar. Interestingly the investigations into the BPCL case suggest the gang is run by a woman who is popularly known as `Bhabi'. A court had later acquitted Ali.
Police said they want to send a strong message to several small gangs indulging in oildiesel smuggling at sea. Sources said the base oil, a by-product from the company's main refinery , was being sent to Wadilube, the BPCL's plant in Wadibunder, to be processed to make lubricant products.
ACP (Sewri division) Yashwant Vatkar who has taken over the probe is likely to rearrest all accused (some in jail and a few out on bail) under MCOCA. Police had earlier arrested five persons--Feroz Shanuwaz Shaikh, Salim Mamdani, Shamiullah Baig, Kiran Barsinghe and Hemant Nakwa. Mohammed Gaffar alias Hassan Kania has been shown as an absconding accused. Most of the accused stay in the vicinity of Wadala, Sewri and Dongri areas.





In a first, police invoke MCOCA against oil mafia





Oil Theft Lasted 9 Months, Cops Sniff Inside Help

Smuggling of oil on the high seas may be common in Mumbai but it is perhaps for the first time that police have come across a case where a gang rigged a 1.5-inch diameter pipe at the BPCL's supply system at Sewri. The pipe ran for 1.5 km and was used to pilfer base oil--used to manufacture greases, motor oil and metal processing fluids. The city police, who had been investigating the case si nce October when they first unearthed the fraud, on Monday decided to invoke the stringent MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) against 11 people, six of whom are still on the run. The modus operandi of the gang was to steal the base oil and then transfer it using a tempo in the middle of the night.BPCL has said the gang stole 10,000 litres in nine months.“We believe this is the tip of the iceberg. It also poses a security risk. The extent of the damage is yet to be ascertained,“ a police officer said.
The gang drilled a small hole into the underground Bharat Petroleum pipe and fixed a pipe to it outside the plant.“From there they extended it by around 200 metres to Gangabowdi on port trust land. “Here, they used an electric motor to draw the oil and transported it another 1.5km through a pipe before discharging it into drums,'' said the officer. The pipe also passed un derneath a railway track meant for goods trains to transport oil from refineries. BPCL has a storage facility in Sewri and transports oil to its refinery in Trombay . Police said the gangsters had threatened a railway guard when he tried to stop them from digging.
The base oil was then sold at half the prevailing market price. Police raided the place and found more than 10,000 litres of base oil illegally stored in drums said, deputy commissioner of police (port zone) Kiran Chavan. Police suspect the involvement of security officers at BPT given that it would be difficult to sustain such a clandestine operation for 9 months without being noticed. Sources said that it will be the first time that Mumbai police are invoking MCOCA on the oil mafia.
It will be a major blow to several small gangs operating since the exit of oil mafia Mohammed Ali after he was arrested in the murder of his rival Chand Madar. Interestingly the investigations into the BPCL case suggest the gang is run by a woman who is popularly known as `Bhabi'. A court had later acquitted Ali.
Police said they want to send a strong message to several small gangs indulging in oildiesel smuggling at sea. Sources said the base oil, a by-product from the company's main refinery , was being sent to Wadilube, the BPCL's plant in Wadibunder, to be processed to make lubricant products.
ACP (Sewri division) Yashwant Vatkar who has taken over the probe is likely to rearrest all accused (some in jail and a few out on bail) under MCOCA. Police had earlier arrested five persons--Feroz Shanuwaz Shaikh, Salim Mamdani, Shamiullah Baig, Kiran Barsinghe and Hemant Nakwa. Mohammed Gaffar alias Hassan Kania has been shown as an absconding accused. Most of the accused stay in the vicinity of Wadala, Sewri and Dongri areas.

Apr 03 2016 : The Times of India (Mumbai)

Alexandra Cinema takes on new role as mosque

Ahmed Ali

Mumbai





Cinema buffs of a cer tain vintage still wax eloquen about erstwhile Alexandra Ci nema's hammy film title trans lations. On its Nagpada marqu ee, Alfred Hitchcock's `39 Steps was dubbed `Ek Kum Chaalis Lambe', `Double Impact' beca me `Ram Aur Shyam' and `Bruce Lee The Legend' morphed into the quintessentially-Bambaiya Dadaon Ka Dada ­ Bruce Lee'. By the early 2000s, however Alexandra Cinema had gradua ted from showing Hollywood fa re to B and C-grade films inter spersed with adult films. It was a time when local residents asked school bus drivers to switch routes so that impressionable school kids weren't exposed to the “dirty“ posters.
Then about three years ago, in a startling about-face, the cinema hall took on a new avatar as a mosque-cum-Islamic institution. Today , the Dolby Digital speakers, which once blared item numbers, call the faithful to prayer and the audience's catcalls have given way to an imam chanting Quranic verses five times a day .
The transformation began in 2011, when south Mumbai builder Rafiq Dudhwala bought the sprawling 15,000sq ft proper ty for several crores and donated it to an Islamic NGO, Deeniyat, which deals in printing, dis tribution and the sale of Islamic books to Urdu and Arabic schools across the country. The huge structure stands bang opposite the Maharashtra College at Belasis road near Mumbai Central's Nagpada junction.
At one time, scores of cinema halls dotted this 3km radius.Ardeshir Irani, who began his career as an exhibitor in the early days of Indian cinema, opened Alexandra Cinema in 1921 along with co-owner Abdulally Esoofally, another tent showman-turned-movie magnate. It was inaugurated by barrister Sir Chimanlal Setalvad, says film scholar, curator and historian Am rit Gangar, and the first film screened was the silent movie `The Woman and the Puppet'.
Gangar often visited Alexandra in the late '70s and '80s for the ambience and to check out the film posters -his favourite was the 1969 thriller `Blow Hot, Blow Cold' which was written as `Below Hot, Below Cold' in Devnagari script to make it “more erotic and sexy“. At the time, ice-cream-walas and candy-floss-walas would throng the aisles and black-market-walas -with red `roomals' tied around their necks -would lurk near the entrance.The audience in these halls had a “visceral response“ to cinema, recalls Gangar. “They would dance, whistle, sing and shout abuses.“
From the outside, the theatre looks the same but its interiors have been transformed. More than 500 seats were removed to create a cavernous prayer hall where the faithful offer namaaz in the direction of Mecca, turning away from the 70mm screen. The balcony is used to store books on Islamic studies, the passage outside the hall has been converted into a `wazukhana' (a place to wash before prayers), the main entrance is now Deeniyat's office, the box office is a distribution window for Islamic literature.
Dudhwala declined to comment on the transformation but the change was welcomed by residents of surrounding Muslim-dominated areas like Clare road, Nagpada, Agripada and Mumbai Central. “He [Dudhwala] had bought this property to develop it but changed his mind and decided to donate it for a good cause. He has done a great job,“ said a former Urdu lecturer Khurshid Nomani.
The vulgar film posters infuriated ocal residents as there are three educational institutes in the vicinity -Akbar Peerbhoy Girls High School, Anjuman Islam Girls School and Maharashtra College. Some even avoided sending their children to these institu ions and the posters often incited vio ent protests.
“Many students were enraged by he vulgar posters and they tore the heatre's hoardings on several occasions, but it did not have any effect,“ recalls a Maharashtra College lecturer, who studied in the same institution.“The sale of the theatre has now closed this chapter. “

Residents welcome makeover, say they are glad to be rid of vulgar posters





Cinema buffs of a cer tain vintage still wax eloquen about erstwhile Alexandra Ci nema's hammy film title trans lations. On its Nagpada marqu ee, Alfred Hitchcock's `39 Steps was dubbed `Ek Kum Chaalis Lambe', `Double Impact' beca me `Ram Aur Shyam' and `Bruce Lee The Legend' morphed into the quintessentially-Bambaiya Dadaon Ka Dada ­ Bruce Lee'. By the early 2000s, however Alexandra Cinema had gradua ted from showing Hollywood fa re to B and C-grade films inter spersed with adult films. It was a time when local residents asked school bus drivers to switch routes so that impressionable school kids weren't exposed to the “dirty“ posters.
Then about three years ago, in a startling about-face, the cinema hall took on a new avatar as a mosque-cum-Islamic institution. Today , the Dolby Digital speakers, which once blared item numbers, call the faithful to prayer and the audience's catcalls have given way to an imam chanting Quranic verses five times a day .
The transformation began in 2011, when south Mumbai builder Rafiq Dudhwala bought the sprawling 15,000sq ft proper ty for several crores and donated it to an Islamic NGO, Deeniyat, which deals in printing, dis tribution and the sale of Islamic books to Urdu and Arabic schools across the country. The huge structure stands bang opposite the Maharashtra College at Belasis road near Mumbai Central's Nagpada junction.
At one time, scores of cinema halls dotted this 3km radius.Ardeshir Irani, who began his career as an exhibitor in the early days of Indian cinema, opened Alexandra Cinema in 1921 along with co-owner Abdulally Esoofally, another tent showman-turned-movie magnate. It was inaugurated by barrister Sir Chimanlal Setalvad, says film scholar, curator and historian Am rit Gangar, and the first film screened was the silent movie `The Woman and the Puppet'.
Gangar often visited Alexandra in the late '70s and '80s for the ambience and to check out the film posters -his favourite was the 1969 thriller `Blow Hot, Blow Cold' which was written as `Below Hot, Below Cold' in Devnagari script to make it “more erotic and sexy“. At the time, ice-cream-walas and candy-floss-walas would throng the aisles and black-market-walas -with red `roomals' tied around their necks -would lurk near the entrance.The audience in these halls had a “visceral response“ to cinema, recalls Gangar. “They would dance, whistle, sing and shout abuses.“
From the outside, the theatre looks the same but its interiors have been transformed. More than 500 seats were removed to create a cavernous prayer hall where the faithful offer namaaz in the direction of Mecca, turning away from the 70mm screen. The balcony is used to store books on Islamic studies, the passage outside the hall has been converted into a `wazukhana' (a place to wash before prayers), the main entrance is now Deeniyat's office, the box office is a distribution window for Islamic literature.
Dudhwala declined to comment on the transformation but the change was welcomed by residents of surrounding Muslim-dominated areas like Clare road, Nagpada, Agripada and Mumbai Central. “He [Dudhwala] had bought this property to develop it but changed his mind and decided to donate it for a good cause. He has done a great job,“ said a former Urdu lecturer Khurshid Nomani.
The vulgar film posters infuriated ocal residents as there are three educational institutes in the vicinity -Akbar Peerbhoy Girls High School, Anjuman Islam Girls School and Maharashtra College. Some even avoided sending their children to these institu ions and the posters often incited vio ent protests.
“Many students were enraged by he vulgar posters and they tore the heatre's hoardings on several occasions, but it did not have any effect,“ recalls a Maharashtra College lecturer, who studied in the same institution.“The sale of the theatre has now closed this chapter. “