MUMBAI, Aug. 10 -- A special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime (MCOC) Act court has acquitted four alleged members of a crime syndicate led by Anees Ibrahim, brother of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar. The four were suspects in a Rs.50-lakh extortion bid against a Malad hotelier between July 2017 and June 2018. The police identified the accused as Ramdas Parshuram Rahane, 49, Harish Shamlal Gyanchandani, 51, Aziz Abdul Unni Mohamed, 62, Mohamad Altaf Abdul Latif Syed, 57. A fifth accused in the case, Danish Ali Jamaluddin Ahmed, 43, was discharged and pardoned after he provided testimony against the other accused. Special Judge Mahesh K Jadhav said the prosecution had "utterly failed" to establish that the accused had conspired with Anees and his close aide Chhota Shakil to threaten and extort money from the victim. The court added that the evidence did not prove a criminal conspiracy or the mandatory "continued unlawful activity required to invoke the MCOC Act. The case relates to an FIR registered on June 2018. According to the police, the victim, a hotelier with business interests in Dubai, began getting calls and WhatsApp messages from international numbers demanding Rs.50 lakh. Evidence in the case included WhatsApp chats, voice notes, call data records, and alleged recoveries-a pistol from Rahane, and a licensed revolver from Mohamed. However, the court noted that Ahmed's testimony had not been corroborated, and there were inconsistencies in witness accounts. The court said that the chain of custody for the electronic evidence was unclear, and added that Mohamed had a valid license for the arms he possessed and they were unrelated to the alleged conspiracy. Representatives Ajiz, advocate MB Shirsat and Javed Allana, argued that the evidence did not establish that the five had colluded with each other or the wanted gangsters. The court agreed and acquitted all five, and ordered their bail bonds to be cancelled, and sureties to be returned....