AK-56 seized from Dawood gang member's house

An AK-56 rifle has been seized from the house belonging to a member of the Dawood Ibrahim gang in suburban Goregaon here, police said on Saturday.

"Yasmin Naim Khan (35), wife of Dawood Ibrahim gang member Naim Khan, was arrested following the raid on the couple's house on Friday," a senior official of Thane police said.

Apart from the AK-56 rifle, three magazines, a 9 mm pistol and 13 live cartridges were seized from Khan's house by the Anti Extortion Cell (AEC) of Thane police, he said.

The raid followed interrogation of two reported drug peddlers, Jahid Zali Shoukat Kashmiri (47) and Sanjay Shroff (47), arrested by the Thane AEC in central Mumbai two days ago.

The assault rifle was lying at Khan's house for a long time, the official claimed.

Naim Khan was arrested by the Mumbai Crime Branch under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in 2016.

He and some others had reportedly planned to kill Iqbal Attarwala, a former gang member, on the instructions of fugitive gangster Chhota Shakeel, the official said.

They were arrested before the plan could be executed.

Naim Khan is currently lodged in Thane prison, awaiting trial.

AEC sleuths are questioning Yasmin as to why the weapons and ammunition were stored at the house, the official said.

She was on Saturday produced before a court in Thane, which remanded her to police custody till July 11, he added.