Mumbai police arrest Anil Parab on Monday morning at Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport. (PTI)

Mumbai, April 21: The increasing cooperation between the UAE and India have spelt doom for yet another underworld don, Anil ‘Wangya’ Parab.

After being deported from Dubai last night, 40-year-old Parab was arrested immediately after landing at the international airport here. He has been remanded in police custody till April 29.

Known to be in the close-knit, inside team of gangster Dawood Ibrahim, Parab is wanted for murdering his wife, apart from other criminal cases.

The man, known as ‘Wangya’ — meaning brinjal — in the underworld, was arrested by a crime branch team after Dubai sent him home by continuing an encouraging trend that has seen five other wanted mafia figures land in the country.

Others forced to take the flight back to India are Majnu Mustafa Dossa, Ejaz Pathan, Imran Rehman Khan, Iqbal Kaskar and Mohammed Altaf.

While the two most high-profile deportations have been those of Pathan and Dossa, the main accused in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, the deportation of Dawood’s brother, Kaskar, has come as no less a victory for the police.

Altaf and Khan — the two other deportees — have been accused of conspiring and hatching the Ghatkopar blasts in December last year.

Parab, who started his crime career as an autorickshaw driver in Chembur, is wanted in eight cases of murder, including that of his wife, Neha. He is also linked to the murder of Shiv Sena corporator Khimbahadur Thapa. The man who first joined the Ashok Joshi gang in the 1980s was soon taken over by the D-company, to which Parab remained loyal ever since.

The Dawood henchman was today booked for the murder of his wife in 1995.

The police record at Vakhola police station, where the complaint was lodged, says Parab plotted to kill Neha as he fell in love with another woman in the Emirates in 1990.

According to the police, Parab’s associate, Rajan Singh Kapkoti, had called Neha to his office to collect “$ 90,000” that her husband had sent her from Dubai. It was while Neha was speaking to Parab on the telephone that Kapkoti and some others allegedly hit her on the head with a sharp object, killing her on the spot. They then defaced her and poured kerosene on the body before torching it. The body was later found dumped in Kalina, north Mumbai.

However, Parab’s lawyer Srikant Bhatt told the court that “there is no evidence to link Parab to the murder’’ and that the case was an “eyewash”. Parab was in Dubai when his wife was murdered in Mumbai, Bhatt said. Bhatt has sought details of the other cases in which Parab is accused.

The police, who allege that Parab was an active member of the D-gang and that he also had a hand in the Mumbai blasts, said it was a “big breakthrough” for investigators looking into Dawood’s crime file.

Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Pradeep Sawant said Parab had an Interpol red-corner notice against his name. “Underworld gangsters are trickling into the net of the Mumbai police because the Dubai police have become stricter with underworld activities after the murder of Sharad Shetty,” Sawant said, explaining the barrage of mafia deportees from Dubai.