29-years later: alleged revenge murder in Mumbai
- Mumbai Crime Branch said it arrested Sadiq Jawar, 29, and Naushad Mithani, 22, for the April 20 killing of 78-year-old Iqbal Ibrahim Selia in Nagpada, alleging a decades-old revenge plot. - Police say Jawar targeted Selia because he believed the elderly relative had tipped off officers before gangster Sadiq Kalia was killed in a Dadar police encounter in 1999. - The case reaches back to Mumbai’s encounter era, when police killings of gangsters reshaped underworld networks and later drew scrutiny. (indianexpress.com)
Mumbai police say a 29-year-old man killed a 78-year-old relative in Nagpada to avenge a gangster’s death from 1999. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) (indianexpress.com) The Mumbai Crime Branch arrested Sadiq Jawar and Naushad Mithani in Nagpur on April 25 in the April 20 murder of Iqbal Ibrahim Selia, police said. Selia was attacked near his Nagpada home after evening prayers, according to investigators. (theweek.in) (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) Police say Jawar is the nephew of Sadiq Kalia, a Mumbai gangster killed in a Dadar police encounter led by officer Daya Nayak in 1999. Investigators say Jawar believed Selia had informed on Kalia’s movements before that shooting. (indianexpress.com) (lokmat.com) The case turns on a period in Mumbai policing when “encounters” meant armed confrontations in which officers killed suspected gangsters. Those operations weakened several underworld groups in the 1990s, but many later faced allegations that some shootings were staged. (thehindu.com) (indianexpress.com) Police said Jawar was about two years old when Kalia died, and they allege he grew up hearing that Selia had betrayed his uncle. Investigators told reporters that CCTV footage and technical evidence helped trace the suspects after they fled to Nagpur. (indianexpress.com) (freepressjournal.in) There is also a competing account. The Indian Express reported that Selia’s family told police the dispute was about money, not an informer’s role, and said Selia had once helped raise Jawar after his father died. (indianexpress.com) That dispute matters because police have publicly framed the killing as revenge, while relatives are contesting the motive at the center of the case. The charges now move the story from underworld memory into court, where investigators will have to prove why Selia was killed. (indianexpress.com) (theweek.in) For now, Mumbai police say the murder closed a 27-year circle from a Dadar encounter to a Nagpada street attack. The defense over motive, and the family’s money-dispute claim, will shape what comes next. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) (indianexpress.com)
