The Mumbai Police Crime Branch will be registering an offence against the husband and in-laws of Soniya Lakdawala, the daughter of fugitive gangster Ejaz Lakdawala, for allegedly helping her evade arrest in the city for the past six months.
Ms. Lakdawala, who has allegedly been in India since 2018, was arrested last week by the Crime Branch’s Anti Extortion Cell (AEC). She was detained at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport while trying to fly to Nepal using a passport obtained using forged documents. She was later handed over to the AEC. Officials said they had been on her trail for the last six months, but her family members kept derailing their investigation.
A Crime Branch officer said, “We learnt that Ms. Lakdawala was in India since 2018 and had married a Versova resident named Shahid Sheikh. We made repeated inquiries with him and other members of his family regarding her whereabouts for the last six months. However, they kept making various claims to send us on a wild goose chase. Sometimes they would say that she had left them out of the blue, while on other occasions they would claim they had thrown her out of the house after learning about her background.”
The officer said after Ms. Lakdawala’s arrest, she was grilled about the claims made by her husband and in-laws and the AEC confirmed their complicity in preventing her arrest. “We will be registering a case of aiding and abetting a wanted fugitive under the Indian Penal Code this week,” the officer said.
Ms. Lakdawala was produced before the Esplanade court on Monday and remanded in police custody till January 4. AEC officers said the accused does not seem to have been directly involved in the extortion case registered with the Khar police this year, in which Ejaz’s brother Akhil was arrested.
“She could provide vital clues about his whereabouts and his gang’s activities. This is not something she will divulge easily and so sustained custodial interrogation is necessary,” the officer said.
