"Gifts from the Gulf" continues...

With this kidnapping Aftab Ansari resumed his career in crime as a gang leader of criminals specializing in kidnappings for ransom.
The next big target was Niranjan Shah, a Mumbai based wheeler-dealer, who partnered with Aftab’s comrade-in-arms Raju Anadkat. Raju and Shah together sent a consignment of drugs to Canada.
When it came to sharing of the booty earned, Shah claimed that the consignment was seized by the
Canadian Police en route and refused to pay Raju his share of the profits. Raju decided to recover his share by kidnapping Shah. He instructed Aftab and Asif Raza Khan to kidnap Shah in Kathmandu during one of Shah’s business visits there. He was kept in confinement for fifty-five days in Maharajganj, Kathmandu.

Several leading lights of the underworld like Fazl ur Rehman, O.P. Singh, Chhota Rajan intervened on Shah’s behalf with Raju Anadkat to peacefully settle the dispute and release Shah. Eventually, Raju Anadkat and Aftab Ansari agreed to settle for Rs. 20 lacs and released Shah on Darbar Marg in Nepal’s capital. But the mother of all kidnappings was yet to come. In July 2001, they targeted Partha Pratim Roy Burman, Chairman-cum-Managing Director of Khadim Shoes in Kolkata. Aqib Ali Khan a.k.a.
Firasat was tasked to procure weapons and a car from Delhi, which he did. Five armed men blocked Burman’s Tata Safari MUV with a Maruti van on C.N. Roy Road, Tiljala, near his factory in
southern outskirts of the city. Burman was forcibly dragged out of his vehicle and bundled into the kidnappers’ Maruti van. Burman was wounded in the arm by a shot fired at him by an abductor when he tried to resist and escape.

Burman was taken to a safe house in Haroa in North 24 Parganas District, near the Indo
Bangladesh border, where he got treated for his injuries by the abductors. He was kept in
confinement while the Burman family negotiated with Aftab Ansari, the mastermind behind the
kidnapping, who was then in Dubai.

To be continued...