Ahmedabad: Gujarat Police have arrested a life convict in the 1992 Radhika Gymkhana massacre case who had been absconding for the past seven years after jumping parole, officials said on Sunday.

Mohammad Taslim alias Mohammad Taslim Mohammad Umar Sheikh was apprehended from Rajasthan in a joint operation by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch. Taslim had been serving a life sentence in the Radhika Gymkhana massacre case as well as the murder of former Rajya Sabha MP and Congress leader Raoof Valiullah.

A former sharpshooter associated with underworld don Abdul Latif’s gang, Taslim was released on temporary parole from Sabarmati Central Jail in 2019 but failed to return. Since then, he had allegedly been evading arrest by frequently changing his identity, location and communication methods.

Acting on specific intelligence inputs, Crime Branch teams tracked his movements to Rajasthan and arrested him in a planned operation.

Police said legal procedures are underway to transfer him back to Sabarmati Central Jail.

According to investigators, Taslim was a trusted gunman in Abdul Latif’s gang, which was involved in several violent gang rivalries across Gujarat during the 1990s.

He was convicted in the infamous Radhika Gymkhana massacre in Ahmedabad’s Odhav area on August 3, 1992, when armed gang members opened indiscriminate fire in an attempt to eliminate rival bootlegger Hansraj Trivedi. Nine people were killed in the attack, which is regarded as Gujarat’s first gang-war incident involving AK-47 assault rifles.

Taslim was also found guilty in the murder of Raoof Valiullah, who was shot dead in Ahmedabad in October 1992. Police had linked the killing to Valiullah’s efforts to expose the gang’s alleged role in the Radhika Gymkhana massacre. DeshGujarat