MUMBAI: Gangster Chhota Shakeel's "telephone operator" Fahim Machmach who issued extortion threats on the former's instructions has reportedly died of Covid-19 in Karachi late Friday night.
Sources said that Machmach (51), who was admitted with severe breathing problems in a private hospital in Karachi a few days ago after he tested positive for Covid-19, died of multiple organ failure on Friday. Sources said that he was buried in Karachi early Saturday. Shakeel called up his family which stays at Peeru lane at Imambara near Sir JJ hospital and conveyed the message of his death.
"Yes we too have got information about his death in Karachi due to Covid. We are awaiting further details", said a senior police officer in Mumbai.
Fahim Shaikh alias Machmach was wanted by the Mumbai, Delhi and Gujarat police in more than two dozen cases. Sources said that though he took part in one of the two attacks on former Mumbai mayor Milind Vaidya in Mahim in 1999, he fled the country and only came under the scanner for the first time in 2003 when he called up a builder in South Mumbai and abused him on behalf of Shakeel for refusing to pay.
Later when the crime branch arrested four members of Chhota Shakeel, it was revealed that Machmach too had taken part in the attack on behalf of Shakeel. A former encounter specialist said that there was a plan to eliminate him in an encounter in 2001. Fahim’s style of nagging the victims got him the nickname Machmach. After police started looking for Machmach in the Vaidya case, he fled to Dubai and later shifted to Karachi with Shakeel.
When Dawood was expanding his business activities in UAE, the gang needed someone who could handle the Mumbai operations and Shakeel introduced Machmach who started calling Mumbai targets. Machmach allegedly threatened a woman activist in Mumbai but police arrested the shooters and spoiled his plans.
"Dawood and his brother Anees Ibrahim were upset when he attempted to settle a financial dispute between two traders and it resulted in the arrest of Dawood ’s nephew (Iqbal Kaskar’s son) Mohammed Rizwan Kaskar. He was to take a flight to Dubai, when the arrest happened.
