By IANS,
Hyderabad : Aziz Reddy, an underworld gang leader and an alleged close associate of Mumbai mafia don Chhota Rajan, was gunned down by the police here.
Reddy was shot dead around midnight Wednesday in the upmarket Jubliee Hills area when he and three of his associates went there to extort money from businessmen.
Hyderabad Police Commissioner D. Prasad Rao told reporters that the police team reached Jubliee Hills road number 46 following a tip off.
“We received information that they were moving in a black Innova. A police team spotted the vehicle parked on the road. On seeing the policemen the gangsters standing on the roadside opened fire. Policemen returned fire in self defence, killing Aziz Reddy, while the others escaped,” he said.
Police officials said Reddy whipped out his 9 mm pistol and started firing at the police party.
The gangster’s body was lying at the spot till Thursday morning as the officials did not conduct the inquest at night. The body was later shifted to the Osmania General Hospital, where an autopsy was conducted.
The police said nobody had come forward to claim the body, which had been preserved at the morgue. If nobody claims the body within a week, the authorities might perform his last rites.
A native of Nalgonda district in Andhra Pradesh, Aziz Reddy’s real name was K. Venkat Reddy. He had several cases of murders, kidnappings and extortion registered against him in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Uttar Pradesh. He controlled Chotta Rajan’s drug mafia in Bangkok and Singapore.
Reddy was first arrested in Hyderabad June 14, 2004 after a shootout at Filmnagar in the Jubliee Hills. Sophisticated imported firearms were seized from him. But in 2006 he and seven others were acquitted of the charges after all the witnesses turned hostile.
He had allegedly extorted a huge amount of money from bookies in the city and was in the process of extracting money from businessmen.
Although he was taken to Mumbai in connection with the cases pending against him there, he came out on bail in December last year and resumed his activities here.
According to police, Reddy had come to Hyderabad from Nalgonda in 1990 and was allegedly involved in the killing of two people during communal riots. He went to Mumbai, where he came into contact with Chotta Rajan.
He later went to Indonesia on a fake passport in the name of Mohammed Farooq and from there travelled to Singapore and Bangkok. Continuing his activities from abroad, he used to extort money from bookies and businessmen in Mumbai and Hyderabad.
After the Mumbai serial bomb blasts in 1993, Chhota Rajan allegedly asked Reddy to kill those accused in the blasts. Reddy was reported to have killed eight people in Mumbai. He was later arrested and was in jail for three years.
After his release from jail, Reddy again went to Singapore and then to Bangkok, on Chhota Rajan’s orders.
When differences cropped up with Rajan’s associates over money, Reddy returned to India in December 2002. He went to Kasi in Uttar Pradesh and worked with another mafia don, Subhash Thakur.
There, he is believed to have committed two murders at the instance of Thakur. When Thakoor insisted that Reddy start operations in Mumbai on his behalf, Reddy distanced himself as he faced a threat in Mumbai.
He then decided to establish his network in Hyderabad in the name of Baba Reddy and Company. He was ‘settling’ land disputes in and around the city besides extorting money from businessmen, bookies and film personalities.
Nikhil Reddy, a film producer in Hyderabad, recently complained to the police that Reddy had demanded Rs.10 million and threatened him with serious consequences if he failed to pay.
After the producer’s complaint, the police started keeping a tab on his movements and this finally led to Wednesday night’s shootout.