Mumbai, June 03: Slain Rajan aide Farid Tanasha was guarded by four police-trained canines
“My only desire is to gun down Dawood,” is what Farid Tanasha, a key lieutenant of gangster Chhota Rajan who was shot dead outside his Tilak Nagar residence late yesterday, had told this correspondent in an earlier interview.
He had led several teams to plan the killing of rival gangster Dawood Ibrahim at his Karachi hideout.
Eyewitnesses said Tanasha (37), who is married to the sister of Chhota Rajan’s wife Sujata Nikhalje, was strolling in his building compound at the time of the incident.
The four assailants came in a car and sped off after murdering Tanasha. He died on the spot.
The building compound is guarded by four police-trained dogs and 10 private guards. In his earlier interview, Tanasha had said he would rather deploy canines for his security than have human beings guard him.
According to sources, the needle of suspicion points to rival gangster and Dawood Ibrahim’s right-hand man Chhota Shakeel.
Who is Tanasha?
A member of the Chhota Rajan gang, Farid Tanasha was present at a Christmas party allegedly attended by some senior police officers and a constable in December last year. Tanasha was wanted in various cases of murder, attempt to murder, extortion and robbery. He was arrested in 2005 in Delhi and was granted bail in 2008.
Joint Commissioner of Police Himanshu Roy confirmed the shootout, but refused to give details.
Soon after the shootout, local gangsters claimed the murder was the handiwork of Nepali, who had a fallout with the Rajan gang and Chhota Shakeel, a close lieutenant of Dawood Ibrahim.
Tanasha had earlier told MiD DAY that he was one of the main architects of the murder of Nepal’s member of Parliament, Mirza Dilshad Baig who was killed in Kathmandu in 1998.
Following the death of Rajan’s most-trusted lieutenant, Balu Dokre, Tanasha, who was the gang’s de facto chief in Mumbai, supervised its day-to-day operations and its network across the country.
Tanasha operated from his apartment in building 71 in Tilak Nagar, not far from where he was born.
——-Agencies