Maharashtra minister and NCP leader Nawab Malik has been remanded to the enforcement directorate custody till 3rd March 2022 after he was arrested earlier in the day. Nawab Malik has been arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as his connections with terrorist Dawood Ibrahim had been exposed.
Nawab Malik was summoned by the ED in this case. He was interrogated for hours after being taken to the ED office early in the morning. The 62-year old minister in the Maharashtra government was then produced in front of a court. He was remanded to the enforcement directorate till 3rd March 2022 for further investigations. First he was taken for a medical examination from the ED office, then he was handed over to ED’s custody.
In the last week, ED had conducted raids in South Mumbai in connection with a money laundering case against underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his aides. Close to nine places in Mumbai and one in Thane were raided by the ED including the residences of Dawood Ibrahim’s late sister Haseena Parkar and brother Iqbal Kaskar. The agency also took into custody Iqbal Kaskar who is imprisoned in Thane in an extortion case and presented him before the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court.
Nawab Malik’s name appeared in the process of investigation after the intelligence inputs directed the agency to look into the hawala transaction while probing a money laundering case against Ibrahim, Iqbal Mirchi, Chhota Shakeel, Parkar, and Javed Chikna. The agency traced several hawala transactions linked to money illegally obtained through extortion, drug trafficking, sale of real estate in Nagpada and Bhendi Bazaar area of Mumbai, and other unlawful activities.
According to a report by the Indian Express, one of the charges ED is investigating against Nawab Malik is a property deal that Malik had entered into. There are allegations that the property was allegedly bought by Malik from an aide of Dawood Ibrahim at a price lower than its prevailing market rate. Devendra Fadnavis had alleged in the same regard on 9th November 2021. Fadnavis had accused Malik of having links with the underworld.
Fadnavis had claimed that Malik had bought the property for cheap from two men associated with the Mumbai underworld. Fadnavis said that one of them, Sardar Shahwali Khan, was sentenced by TADA court to life imprisonment in 2007 in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case, while the other, Mohammed Salim Ishaq Patel alias Salim Patel, is a frontman of Dawood Ibrahim’s late sister Hassena Parkar and was arrested along with her in 2007 in a land grabbing case.
Shahawali Khan, from whom Fadnavis claimed Malik had bought the land, is serving a life term in the Mumbai blasts case. He was said to have been part of the team given firearm training by alleged mastermind Tiger Memon and to have done a recce of the Bombay Stock Exchange and the BMC to decide where the bombs should be placed. He was sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment in June 2007 and is presently in jail. The property deal referred to by Fadnavis took place in September 2005.
The other person in the deal, Salim Patel, Fadnavis said, was the bodyguard and driver of Haseena Parkar, holding power of attorney on all land deals.
