Once-feared ‘Chacha’ returns to Mumbai in 2022 Virar murder case

Gangster Subhash Singh Thakur arrested for daylight killing of a Virar builder, brought to Mumbai from UP jail

MUMBAI: A Mumbai gangster, whose name was once only whispered in the shadows, returned to the city on Tuesday, after he was arrested for the 2022 daylight killing of a property developer in Virar east.

Once-feared ‘Chacha’ returns to Mumbai in 2022 Virar murder case

Subhash Singh Thakur, now 74 years old, was brought to Virar by the Crime Branch of the Mira-Bhayander-Vasai-Virar (MBVV) Police, from Fatehgarh Central Jail in Uttar Pradesh, where he is serving a life sentence in another case.

Charged under provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), Thakur was produced before a special MCOCA court in Thane and remanded to police custody till December 22.

In their remand application, police claimed Thakur was the mastermind behind the murder of a local builder, Vishwajit alias Samay Singh Chauhan, in Manvelpada, in Virar east. Chauhan was shot dead on a street by two bike-borne assailants on February 26, 2022.

The murder was linked to a property dispute, where Chauhan and another builder, Rahul Dubey, were both eyeing the same plot at Manvelpada. When Chauhan allegedly muscled in and began construction on the plot, Dubey contracted two shooters to kill him.

Police said Thakur’s name cropped up in the investigation a few months after the arrest of 11 individuals, including Rahul Dubey. They realised the murder plot had, in fact, been hatched by Thakur, known as “Chacha” or “uncle’ in the local builder lobby in the Vasai-Virar region, for his knack of settling disputes.

Thakur’s arrest was delayed due to prolonged medical treatment at a hospital in Banaras Hindu University (BHU), where he was shifted in 2019, from the Fatehgarh jail. The once-notorious gangster, known for his close ties to mafia boss Dawood Ibrahim, was transferred back to jail in 2024, when the MBVV police initiated the process for his arrest.

Police were certain of Thakur’s role in Chauhan’s murder after they arrested the two shooters, Rahul Sharma and Abhishek Singh alias Ankur. They were picked up in Uttar Pradesh by police inspector Pramod Badak of the MBVV Crime Branch and his team, based on CCTV footage and information from informants.

MBVV police believe that securing Thakur’s custody could shed light on several old cases in the Vasai-Virar region, once riddled with property disputes linked to the underworld. It appears that neither age, nor being in custody in another state slowed Thakur, whose alleged role in the Chauhan murder goes back just three years.

“When there is a land dispute, Thakur is often called upon to reach common ground,” said a Crime Branch officer. “Now we can find out how Rahul Dubey contacted Thakur as he was in jail and, since 2019, at the Sir Sunderlal Hospital in BHU.”

Thakur shot to notoriety in the Mumbai underworld after the infamous JJ Hospital shootout in 1992. This was a time when gang warfare regularly spilled onto the streets. The shootout in the government-run JJ Hospital was a revenge killing for the murder of Dawood Ibrahim’s brother-in-law, Ismail Parkar.

The murder was the handiwork of the rival Arun Gawli gang, and Dawood allegedly entrusted Subhash Singh Thakur with shooting Gawli sharpshooter, Shailesh Haldankar, who had been admitted to the hospital. Haldankar and the two constables assigned to protect him were gunned down in a hospital ward.