Suresh Bhagat
MUMBAI: Running a matka (gambling) business, orchestrating murders to look like accidents, conspiring with criminals and giving contracts to kill rivals to take revenge, and a battle for control of the matka business. what the Bhagat family is allegedly all about.
City crime branch on Monday arrested a gang of five, including the 69-year-old brother of matka king, the late Suresh Bhagat, for planning to kill matka queen Jaya Chedda and her sister Asha Bhatt, to avenge his brother’s killing.
Unit IX, led by senior inspector Nandkumar Gopale, arrested Vinod, the elder brother of Suresh, Mohammed Javed Ansari (41), Ramvir Sharma (39), Mohammed Shabbir Darji (31) and Maqsood Qureshi (35). The conspiracy was allegedly hatched by Ahmedabad businessman Bashir Suleman Baigani, who is settled in Manchester, UK. Baigaini has been shown as wanted accused.
Kapadia runs textiles and colour chemical business.
More than 12 years after Suresh Bhagat, the head of a syndicate of “matka” gambling, was murdered and his wife Jaya Chedda conspired about it, the Mumbai Police last week arrested Suresh’s brother Vinod (69), along with four others, for allegedly conspiring to kill Jaya (57) and her sister Asha Bhatt.
The police are trying to find if there is a financial reason behind the Rs 60-lakh supari given to contract killers or if it was Vinod plotting revenge for his brother’s murder.
Jaya, who along with five others, including her son Hitesh and lover Suhas Rege, was convicted of Suresh’s murder in 2013, has been out on bail since the past year. Suresh was killed on June 13, 2008, as his car was rammed by a truck on the Alibag-Pen road when he was returning home from a court hearing.