MY KOLKATA EDUGRAPH
ADVERTISEMENT
Regular-article-logo Sunday, 21 December 2025

KEY 'KILLER' SQUAD HITMAN IN POLICE NET 

Read more below

FROM ANAND SOONDAS Published 06.10.00, 12:00 AM
Lucknow, Oct. 6 :    Lucknow, Oct. 6:  A key member of the hit squad that shot mob boss Chhota Rajan in Bangkok last month was today arrested in Lucknow. Noor Baksh, a Pakistani national born in Baluchistan, was in charge of the seven-member killer gang's getaway from Thailand after the September 15 strike. He arranged bogus visas and passports and was waiting in a car with two others when four hitmen stormed into the Bangkok flat where Rajan was dining with friends and opened fire. Though the mafia boss survived the attack, his host Rohit Verma was killed. Noor Baksh, alias Yaseen Baluchi, alias Naseer Hussain, claimed he was promised $10,000 for the job. D Company, Dawood Ibrahim's gang of which Rajan was once a part, had ordered the killing. Baksh said Dawood and his right hand man Chhota Shakeel had instructed teams spread across many countries 'not to rest before completing their mission'. Lucknow police's elation over the big catch gave way to anxiety as Noor Baksh revealed an elaborate hit-and-run game that could now be played in India. The special task force, which arrested Baksh, has found a diary containing names of accomplices in Zanjibar, Sri Lanka, Canada, Ghana, America, England, Nepal, Dubai, Singapore and Pakistan. It also found dozens of photographs of women, most of them Indians, who Baksh claimed were his 'pen pals'. Sources in the task force said the immediate fear was that D Company would be 'preparing for a welcome' if Rajan was extradited to India. But they are happy the force now has information that could help the Interpol and Thai authorities get to the bottom of the drama. Interpol has already been alerted. Baksh revealed that his team had been trailing Rajan for the past two months and they had accomplices in Malaysia monitoring his movements. The finishing touches to the Rajan assassination plan were given at a meeting in Dubai in the last week of August. The meeting was attended by Chhota Shakeel, Dawood's brother Anees Ibrahim and 10 others. It was then that D Company decided that Rajan 'had to be killed in Bangkok and there would be seven members in the hit squad'. By September 4, the team had acquired a detailed blueprint of Rohit Verma's flat was staying in. Baksh and two others, Qayoom and Aziz, stayed on in Bangkok after the failed attempt till September 19. Baksh then flew to Dubai where he was received by Chhota Shakeel who gave him more instructions. He reached Karachi with Shakeel on September 20, after which they split again. Baksh then went to Kathmandu and after a week, entered India through the Uttar Pradesh border. Thirty-two-year-old Baksh said he was put in charge of the team's safe passage from Thailand because of his expertise in the use of firearms and 'arranging' false passports. Baksh has been with D Company since 1988, arranging false passports and smuggling narcotics. He said he had been jailed in Dubai more than five times and deported to Pakistan on a couple of occasions. He was working for the Dubai police and posted at the international airport when he first got in touch with Dawood. The Pakistani national, who already holds a fake Indian passport in the name of Naseer Hussain, a dead Bangalore resident believed to have been his friend, was arrested from Lucknow's Passport Office while validating a new passport under another bogus name. Baksh first visited India in 1985 when he came to Mumbai holding a passport in the name of Yaseen Baluchi. He was caught by the police along with Mumbai based accomplice Abu Bakr when he was trying to flee through the Porbandar sea route in 1987.    
Follow us on:
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT