AHMEDABAD: The city crime branch has arrested Mohammad Taslim Shaikh, a former member of the Abdul Latif gang and a life convict in the 1992 Radhika Gymkhana mass murder case and the killing of former Rajya Sabha member Rauf Valiullah. Shaikh had been absconding for nearly seven years after jumping parole in 2019.Officers said Shaikh was released on temporary parole but failed to return to prison once the leave period ended. Since then, he had been evading arrest by frequently changing locations and identities.Acting on human intelligence and field inputs, crime branch teams tracked him to Udaipur in Rajasthan, where he was living with his second wife and two children. Police said he was taking up different jobs to sustain himself.A crime branch team carried out an operation in Rajasthan and took him into custody. Legal formalities are underway to bring him back to Sabarmati Central Jail, police said.According to police records, Shaikh was associated with the Abdul Latif gang during the gang rivalry phase of the early 1990s and was convicted in two high-profile cases.In the Radhika Gymkhana case, an armed group allegedly entered the club in Odhav on August 3, 1992, and opened fire while targeting bootlegger Hansraj Trivedi, killing nine people. Investigators have described the attack as one of the earliest instances of AK-47 use in gang-related crime in Gujarat.Shaikh was also convicted in the Oct 1992 murder of Congress leader and former Rajya Sabha member Rauf Valiullah, who, investigators said, was targeted for his efforts to expose those involved in the gymkhana killings.Crime branch officers said sustained efforts to trace Shaikh continued over the years, with teams pursuing leads across multiple states before recent intelligence helped pinpoint his location and confirm his identity, leading to his arrest.
