Ex-HC judge Gautam Patel faces threats over 2024 Dawoodi Bohra verdict

Retired Bombay High Court judge Gautam Shirish Patel and his family have been facing a sustained campaign of threats and violence in India and the United Kingdom since August over his 2024 judgement in the Dawoodi Bohra succession dispute, he told Scroll on Monday.

The most recent incident was reported on Friday, when his daughter Aditi Patel received an anonymous letter threatening the “cremation of you and your family” for failing to comply with directions contained in earlier threats.

On April 22, she was physically assaulted by a masked attacker when she was returning home after dropping her child at school in London. She suffered a bloodied nose in the incident.

The threats are linked to Gautam Patel’s April 22, 2024, judgement in the Dawoodi Bohra succession case. Patel had held that Mufaddal Saifuddin was the rightful leader of the sect of Shia Muslims and dismissed a petition challenging his leadership by the faction led by Taher Fakhruddin.

The letter received by his daughter on Friday claimed that a “gang” had been paid to kill the family and stated that the attack could be called off “by doing what you were told in the last letter”.

It was sent from a fake London address and bore a German stamp, the Hindustan Times reported.

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