On a tip of by his daughter, the Mumbai police arrested Ejaz Lakdawala. In the early morning of January, 09 the police arrested him. His arrest comes on the heels of his daughter Sonia Lakdawala alias Sonia Shaikh’s arrest a fortnight ago at Mumbai International Airport while she was trying to fly to Nepal on a forged passport. After arrest, he was produced before a Mumbai court and remanded to police custody till January 21. There are speculations that this arrest can bring many underworld equations to surface and also on his inputs Dawood may get traced.
Ejaz is involved in more than 20 cases of extortion, attempted murder and rioting. The Mumbai police was trying to arrest Lakdawala for the last six months but they got important leads after arresting his daughter on December 28. The police got to know that Ejaz would be visiting Patna on Wednesday and that’s how they grabbed him and brought him back to Mumbai last night. Lakdawala, who is in his 50s, studied in Bandra’s St. Stanislaus School and started out as an employee in his uncle’s transport company. In 1993, he killed one Haren Mehta after an altercation with him at a cricket match for which he was jailed but was later acquitted in 1995. Lakdawala is one of the most wanted gangsters from Mumbai.
In May 2003, he was rumoured to have been killed when Dawood’s gang-members, also known as D-Company, angered by his fidelity to Chhota Rajan, opened fire at him in a crowded market of Bangkok. However, he survived and moved to Canada, there he got in business. In May 2004, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada following an Interpol red corner notice for him, arrested him.
Lakdawala worked for Dawood Ibrahim under Chhota Rajan before they parted ways and formed his own gang. Before 1993, he lived in Malaysia, United States, Nepal, among other countries over the past one-decade. Though he kept on visiting India frequently, but the police could not succeed in tracing him.
After the split of Dawood Ibrahim gang in the aftermath of the 1993 blasts in Mumbai, Lakdawala started working with Chhota Rajan. During his term in the prison, Lakdawala came into contact with Sunil Madgaonkar alias Matya who eased him into the world of Mumbai’s underworld. Matya, a top associate of Chhota Rajan is also credited to have nurtured Rajan’s favourite hit man Rohit. Verma alias Hammer – who was killed in the 2000 shootout at Bangkok in which Rajan escaped with injuries.
Initially, Lakdawala was among the close confidants of Dawood who used to provide logistical support to D-Company members in Mumbai for extorting Bollywood film producers and businessmen. But after Rajan split with Dawood, Lakdawala chose to walk away with Rajan. In fact, his first job in the underworld came through Matya who ordered him to kill Farid Rajji, an aide of Dawood confidant Chhota Shakeel. But Rajji survived the attempt on his life in 1996 and Lakdawala was arrested and sent to the Nashik Jail. He escaped from the jail in 1998 and reached Malaysia. He later shifted his base to Bangkok where he associated himself with Chhota Rajan. In 2003, Lakdawala is believed to have played a major role in the killing of D-Company’s chief financier Sharad Shetty in Dubai that saw Shakeel order a hit on Ejaz Lakdawala. He was shot in a busy market place in Bangkok in 2003, but he survived seven bullet injuries and was admitted to a hospital in Bangkok from where he escaped to South Africa and later to Canada.
Lakdawala was last operational from Nepal where he lived under the guise of a hosiery businessman and travelled to United States of America, Malaysia, Canada, Ghana and several countries in Europe under various aliases, said crime branch sources.
Lakdawala is wanted in several extortion cases in Mumbai, Delhi and other parts of the country. In 2016, the crime branch arrested Ejaz’s brother Akhil alias Merchant and cousin Sameer Lakdawala in connection with an extortion case.
After quitting the Rajan gang, Lakdawala started his own extortion group and randomly kept threatening builders, hoteliers and film personalities.
There was an Interpol notice issued against him. After shootout at Rajan, he shifted to Canada and was known to be living there with a fake identity.
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