Court acquits man accused of extorting fashion designer

Mumbai: Esplanade metropolitan magistrate court on Wednesday acquitted a 50-year-old man accused of extorting money from fashion designer Xerxes Bhathena using the name of gangster Chhota Shakeel.

In his complaint to the Khar police, Bhathena claimed that in April 2009, he had received a number of calls from one person, who introduced himself as Javed and claimed to be working for gangster Chhota Shakeel. In his initial calls, the man threatened the fashion designer to pay ₹10 lakh.

“Mai Chhota Shakeel ka aadmi hun, bhai ne dus peti dene ko bola hai (I work for Chhota Shakeel and the bhai has asked you to pay ₹10 lakh),” Javed allegedly told Bhathena. The designer approached the Khar police and filed a complaint after the caller continued to make threatening calls.

The case was transferred to the crime branch for probe. In the meanwhile, Javed had reduced the extortion demand to ₹2 lakh and eventually came down to ₹50,000.

On April 28, 2009, the crime branch arrested Javed aka Jafarali Musaali Shaikh, a Mahim resident, while accepting ₹50,000 from the designer. The police had also seized a knife from him.

The police filed the charge sheet and in August 2010 the metropolitan magistrate court framed charges against the accused. The prosecution began the trial by examining the star designer, who has designed dresses for several Bollywood stars right from Parveen Babi to Sridevi.

In his testimony, Bhathena said that he was residing in Bandra in 2009 when had received telephonic calls threatening him for extortion. However, in his examination-in-chief, Bhathena claimed that he could not recollect the phone number from which he got the calls.

During the pendency of the trial, the designer filed an application informing the court that he did not want to pursue the matter any further and thereafter the prosecution did not bring any further witnesses to prove the case against Javed. Bhathena was declared hostile and though the prosecution cross-examined him thereafter, he flatly refused to identify the accused before the court.

“It appears that he (the fashion designer) has settled the matter with the accused and as such he utterly failed to state anything against the accused. Thus, evidence of the informant is not at all sufficient to connect the accused with the alleged offences. Hence, in absence of any evidence ingredients of all offences are not at all proved by the prosecution against the accused,” the court said while acquitting Javed.