New Delhi: Former independent MLA from Mundka constituency and Congress leader Rambir Shokeen was arrested by the special cell of the Delhi police on Monday in connection with a case under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

He was produced before the court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate Sumit Dass, which remanded him to three-day police custody. The police told the court that accused was to be confronted with the other accused persons, including Bawana, arrested in the case.

He was chargesheeted last year under provisions of the MCOCA for his alleged involvement in a crime syndicate headed by his nephew Neeraj Bawana.

“Shokeen, who was declared a proclaimed offender, was arrested on Sunday evening from Yuva Shakti School at Rama Vihar in Karala in outer Delhi at 6.30 pm. He is the uncle of jailed gangster Neeraj Bawana,” deputy commissioner of police (special cell) Pramod Kumar Kushwah

Besides Neeraj and Shokeen, the police has chargesheeted Neeraj’s elder brother Pankaj Sehrawat and other arrested members of the syndicate — Sunil Rathi, Amit Malik alias Bhura, Naveen Dabas, Rahul Dabas, Naveen Hooda, Deepak Dabas and Gurpreet Singh in the case.

The police, which had named 163 persons as prosecution witnesses in the case, claimed that these accused were involved in several criminal cases

Shokeen was elected to the Delhi Assembly as an independent MLA in 2013 and he later joined the Congress. The Mahara-shtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999, is a law enacted by Maharashtra in 1999 to combat organised crime and terrorism.

Shokeen was declared a proclaimed offender by the court on August 26 last year.

In February this year, a court in Delhi had denied anticipatory bail to the accused, saying there was incriminating evidence showing he had played an active role in a crime syndicate.