Chota Rajan's former aide acquitted

Hyderabad, Dec 21 (UNI) A city court today acquitted Aziz Reddy, an aide of Chota Rajan, who allegedly eliminated eight people accused in the 1993 Mumbai blasts, for lack of evidences that he had possessed sophisticated weapons.

The Metropolitan sessions court struck down the cases against Aziz Reddy and his six associates, who were arrested by the city police in July 2004.

Aziz Reddy, alias Baba Reddy had, at the behest of Chota Rajan, eliminated eight persons, all of whom were accused in the 1993 serial blasts case in which over 250 people were killed and hundreds injured. He had shifted his operations from Mumbai to Hyderabad in early 2004.

Police seized five foreign-made sophisticated firearms from them and made the arrests in the city's posh Banjara Hills neighbourhood following a lead that it received while investigating a case of exchange of fire Monday between some cops and an unidentified group in another area.

During his brief stay in Hyderabad, Reddy was involved in extortion of money from some big businessmen and a cricket bookie.

He was also trying to solve a dispute involving land worth Rs five billion ( 110 million dollar).

Reddy, a native of Hyderabad, was a small time criminal, till he came in contact with Chota Rajan, who assigned him the task of eliminating the accused in the 1993 blasts in Mumbai and also of running his network in southeast Asian countries.

Using a fake passport in the name of Mohammed Farooq, he went to Saudi Arabia for employment in 1990, but returned in three months.

He was arrested and jailed in late 1990s. After his release in 2000, he shifted his base to Singapore and later to Bangkok. Aziz also took care of a mandrax manufacturing facility of Chota Rajan in Indonesia.

Reddy returned to India in 2002 after he developed differences with other aides of Chota Rajan over financial matters.

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