City cops get Radiowala’s custody from magistrate

Mumbai: The Mumbai crime branch on Friday finally got police custody of Obaid Radiowala till April 11 from a magistrate court after the special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) Judge once again refused to entertain the remand application seeking his custody.  

It may be recalled that after his deportation from the United States of America, the police produced him before the MCOCA Judge S.M. Bhosle seeking his custody in relation to a case where a criminal conspiracy had been hatched to eliminate renowned filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt.

However, Radiowala’s lawyer Nazneen Khatri opposed this application saying that the same court had already discharged all the accused, including the wanted accused, from MCOCA charges.  On day one when Radiowala was produced before Judge Bhosle, the latter asked the crime branch officers to produce Radiowala before a magistrate court because all the accused in the Bhatt case had been discharged from MCOCA while 10 persons had been convicted under relevant sections of the IPC.  

Following this, Radiowala was produced before magistrate Joshi but the latter remanded Radiowala to crime branch custody for a day and asked prosecution to produce a copy of the MCOCA court order. The next day (Thursday) when Radiow-ala was again produced before the court, the special public prosecutor again informed the magistrate that they wanted to prosecute him under MCOCA so he be allowed to produce the accused before the MCOCA court.

On this request, the magistrate remanded him to one-day police custody.  However, on Friday when the crime branch again produced Radiowala befo-re Judge Bhosle, he said that if the crime branch was not satisfied with his order, they should have challenged it in the high court instead of bringing him back before him. The Judge once again directed the police to produce him before the magistrate court. On his orders, the police again produced him before the magistrate who remanded Radiowala to police custody till April 11.  

The prosecution case is that Radiowala with gangster Ravi Pujari, targeted producer-brothers Karim and Ali Morani.