Maharashtra state minority affairs minister, Nawab Malik was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case. Sources said that the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader was brought to the agency’s office early in the morning in the said case registered against fugitive criminal Dawood Ibrahim, his brother Iqbal Kaskar and others.

Sources said that Malik joined the probe early in the morning and was placed under arrest after he allegedly failed to cooperate during questioning when confronted on certain transactions, specifically a property deal in the ongoing probe.

Malik wasn’t immediately available for comment. However, in the past he had called ED’s probe as politically motivated.

In November, Leader of the Opposition in Maharashtra ad BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis had alleged the NCP minister had allegedly struck a property deal with 1993 Bombay bomb blasts convict Sardar Shahwali Khan and Mohd Salim Ishaq Patel, who was the frontman of late Haseena Parkar, Dawood Ibrahim’s sister, he had claimed in a press conference then.

The federal agency had recently arrested Iqbal Kaskar, Ibrahim’s brother in the said case and had also questioned Parkar’s son.

The federal anti-money laundering agency earlier this month registered a case against Ibrahim, a wanted accused in the 1993 Bombay blasts case and his close aides under the Prevention of Money Laundering (PMLA) and had conducted raids across the city including on two city-based builders and Ibrahim’s late sister Parkar’s Nagpada residence. A close relative of Ibrahim’s trusted lieutenant Chhota Shakeel was also questioned by the agency. The case is based on the recent FIR registered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Sources added that the probe found Ibrahim to be actively involved in various illicit businesses including betting, drug trafficking, extortion and real estate.