Producer-actor Sachin Joshi’s father, gutka baron J.M. Joshi, and two others were convicted and sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment on January 9 in a case of an organised crime syndicate that was setting up gutka manufacturing units in Karachi for fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim and his brother, Anees. Special judge B.D. Shelke found Joshi, Farukh Mansuri and Jamiruddin Ansari guilty of offences under the Indian Penal Code and the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). Each of them was also fined Rs. 15 lakh under MCOCA.
During pendency of the case, another gutka baron, Rasiklal Manikchand Dhariwal, who was also an accused, died in 2017. J.M. Joshi was earlier discharged in a murder case.
It is believed that Dawood Ibrahim settled the dispute between J.M. Joshi and Rasiklal Manikchand Dhariwal, after which Joshi arranged to set up a gutka plant for Dawood’s brother, Anees, in Karachi. Joshi even supplied the machinery and manpower for the same.
In 2018, while framing charges against Joshi and Ansari, the court had said that the duo along with Dhariwal, Farukh Mansuri and absconding accused Dawood, Anees, Abdul Antulay and Salim Shaikh were part of the conspiracy.