In a prize catch, the Maharashtra Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) on Wednesday arrested Niranjan Shah, a former aide of late scamster Big Bull Harshad Mehta, from Delhi, for his alleged role in a narcotics case involving an international drug syndicate.
The ATS brought off Niranjan Shah’s arrest after six month-long investigations that took its personnel six States across the country. The investigators financially traced Shah to Delhi where they arrested him.
Sixty-five-year-old Shah - a former partner of stock market big bull Harshad Mehta who masterminded the 1992 Indian securities scam and died at the age of 47 on December 31 2001 -was produced before a designated court which sent him to ATS custody till August 25.
Shah’s name had figured in the investigations into a major case involving the arrest of one Sohel Yusuf Memon and subsequent seizure of 5.65 kilogram of Mephedrone worth around Rs. 2.53-crore. During the interrogation, Memon had told the ATS that Shah had supplied the contraband, but had absconded after that.
Subsequently, ATS’ State Additional DGP Vineet Kumar Agarwal, DIG Shivdeep Lande, SP Sohail Sharma formed a special team of ATS Juhu and set them on a mission to arrest Shah.
By then, Shah had already sneaked out of Mumbai and was moving around in disguises across the country with his trail found in state like Karnataka, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and finally Delhi, said the officials.
“Shah was also constantly on the move in disguises. It had become a challenge for ujs to trace and arrest him,” an ATS official said.
After prolonged investigations that saw them visit six states, ATS sleuths finally tracked him to Munirka village in Delhi, where he was living as an ordinary, poor man, in a single-room hired in somebody else’ name and nabbed him in a covert operation yesterday.
Apart from the Juhu ATS, Shah is wanted by several agencies like the Anti-Narcotics Cell and Economic Offences Wing, Mumbai, the Narcotics Control Bureau and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, New Delhi, and several police stations in both the cities.
Shah had earlier been arrested by the DRI in New Delhi in 2011 and by the NCB Mumbai in 2014, but was released on bail. The investigators said his links were found with dubious peddlers engaged in smuggling large quantities of drugs both into and outside the country.