Investigations into the Ajay Gosalia firing case have revealed that gangster Chhota Rajan’s shooter Satish Kalia had allegedly hatched the plan to kill the bookie-turned-builder.
According to sources in the Crime Branch, Kaushik Gaur one of the arrested suspects in the Gosalia firing case met Kalia a few days before the incident and gave him a Rs5-lakh contract to kill the builder.
Kalia was arrested for killing senior crime journalist J Dey in 2011 and is now lodged in Arthur Road jail.
Gosalia alias Ganda, a Borivli resident, was coming out from Infiniti Mall in Malad (West) on August 28 when three shooters fired five rounds on him.
Four bullets hit Gosalia’s shoulder, stomach, leg and hand. Now out of danger, he is recuperating in a private hospital in Malad.
This was the third attack on Gosalia. He escaped unhurt in the first two attempts.
The case was initially registered in the Bangur Nagar police station but it was later transferred to the Crime Branch (Unit 11) for investigation. The police arrested two suspects, Kaushik Gaur and Abhay Shinde, believed to be the planners of the crime, a few days after the incident.
Gaur used to work as a police informer and is believed to have been a close aide of an encounter specialist.
Soon after learning that a Rajan man had given the contract to kill Gosalia, the police arrested two shooters out of the three, Rajendra Yadav alias Tiwari from Indore and Rohit Vishwakarma from Uttar Pradesh.
“During interrogation, we learnt that Gaur first spoke to Kalia on phone. Later, he went and met the shooter and gave him a contract of Rs5 lakh to kill Gosalia,” said a source in the Crime Branch. “But as of now, the motive behind the firing is still not clear.”
The police said that they are planning to take Gaur’s custody again so as to collect concrete evidence against Kalia. “Five suspects are still wanted in this case,” added the source.
Deputy commissioner of police Ambadas Pote said, “There are several people, including one shooter, who are still at large. We are trying our best to nab them.”
