NEW DELHI: While attaching eight of his prime properties on Wednesday, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) claimed that Nawab Malik, Maharashtra cabinet minister currently in judicial custody, actively “connived” with the Dawood gang and helped the fugitive terror accused in laundering proceeds of crime.
From one of the properties attached by the agency – three acres of land and buildings at Goawala Compound in Kurla estimated to be worth Rs 300 crore – a “rent of Rs 11.7 crore has also been received in two entities controlled by Malik, namely Solidus Investments Pvt Ltd and Malik Infrastructure which is proceeds of crime, the ED said, justifying its attachment of the assets.
The agency has identified Malik’s properties across the country, including his ancestral house in UP. In the latest order, the ED has attached nearly three acres of property at Goawala Compound in Kurla, besides two flats in Kurla (West), two flats in Bandra (West) and about 148 acres of land in Osmanabad. Further probe is on, it said.
The ED said Malik-controlled Solidus Investment Pvt Ltd had entered into a deal to ‘illegally’ acquire the three-acre plot at Kurla with the help of Mumbai serial blasts convict Sardar Shahwali Khan through a 33-month lease agreement signed on July 18, 2003.
While Khan controlled a part of the land, ED has said, Malik got the full possession of the plot and buildings through cash deals with Dawood Ibrahim’s sister Haseena Parker. “Dawood, after he left India, started controlling his criminal activities in India through his close aides like Parkar and others. Probe revealed that in one such case, prime property of Munira Plumber was usurped by Nawab Malik through Solidus Investments Pvt Ltd, with active connivance of the members of D-gang, including Haseena Parkar. For Usurping this property, Parkar and Malik connived together and executed several legal documents to put a facade of genuinity for this criminal act,” the agency said.
The ED’s money laundering case is based on an FIR filed by the National Investigation Agency in February against Dawood, Chhota Shakeel, Tiger Memon, Javed Chikna and Parkar among others alleging that the D-gang ran its illegal operation and money laundering uninterrupted even as the police was hunting for the mastermind of the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts.
Malik’s association with Dawood’s sister and another 1993 serial blasts accused Sardar Shah Wali Khan has been documented by ED in its submissions before a special court. In fact, sources allege, many of the D-gang members have been ‘very cooperative’ in recording statements and giving evidence about Malik’s acquisition of ‘disputed’ properties in Mumbai.
Referring to Parker, Shah Wali and others, the ED said “these people illegally transferred the land belonging to Munira Plumber and her mother Mariyam Goawala by getting it registered on the strength of forged documents in the name of Solidus Investments Pvt Ltd”.