Jamim Shah

Kathmandu, Feb. 8: A Nepalese media baron with alleged links to Dawood Ibrahim and blamed for the backlash against actor Hrithik Roshan in the Himalayan country 10 years ago, was shot dead yesterday afternoon in Kathmandu by gunmen suspected to be from a breakaway faction of the Chhota Rajan gang.

Jamim Shah was shot dead in daylight by the motorcycle-borne attackers.

Sources in Nepal police said the two masked gunmen were “foreigners” who came to Nepal from India. They said evidence gathered so far indicated that the assailants monitored Shah’s day-to-day activities for sometime before making the hit.

“The sharpshooters followed Shah’s Pajero from hotel Yak Yeti. They overtook the car near the French embassy and shot Shah, who was sitting next to the driver,” a police officer said.

The sources said the murder could be a part of a turf war between the Chhota Rajan gang or its erstwhile associates and D-Company, led by Dawood Ibrahim.

The 51-year-old media baron, long suspected of having links with Dawood and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), owned Space Time Network, a private media group that operates Nepal’s first satellite television station, Channel Nepal, and Kathmandu’s largest cable network.

He had launched two dailies in the late nineties, but later shut them down because of financial problems and a mob attack on his company headquarters in September 2004.

Shah’s activities and alleged links to D-Company and the ISI came under scrutiny in 2000 when his television channel and newspapers instigated anti-Indian riots by falsely attributing inflammatory statements to Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan. Five people died in the mob violence and several Indian establishments and businesses came under attack.

Subsequently, the Indian government made a formal request to the Nepal government to investigate the source of funding of Shah’s companies. Shah had denied Delhi’s allegations and alleged that he was being falsely implicated by India.

A man who identified himself as Bharat Nepali, a former aide to Chhota Rajan, told a television network that he had planned and executed the murder because of Shah’s “anti-India activities”.

Nepali, said to be hailing from Delhi, claimed he had floated his own gang.