Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
ED files 5,000-page charge sheet against minister Nawab Malik
MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday filed a 5,000-page charge sheet in the Mumbai sessions court against Maharashtra minorities development minister Nawab Malik. The ED had on February 23 arrested the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader in connection with a money-laundering case registered against fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim and his close aides.
ED’s case is based on an FIR registered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on February 3 as part of its probe into the alleged terrorist activities and drug trafficking undertaken by the gang.
The 62-year-old leader is presently in judicial custody and lodged in Arthur Road jail.
ED claimed that Malik had usurped a prime property at Kurla – Goawala Compound, spread over three acres and valued at about ₹300 crore at current market price – originally owned by one Munira Plumber through Solidus Investments.
“For usurping this property, Dawood’s late sister Haseena Parkar and Malik connived together and executed several legal documents to put a façade of genuinity for this criminal act,” ED said in a release on Wednesday.
“These persons illegally transferred the land belonging to Plumber and her mother Mariyam Goawala by getting it registered on the strength of fake/ forged documents in the name of
Solidus Investments Private Limited,” the agency added.
ED claimed that the rent amount of ₹11.70 crore collected by Solidus Investments and Malik Infrastructure from tenants on this property was also proceeds of the crime, as contemplated under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
Malik’s family has rubbished the allegations and said the family firm had purchased Goawala Compound from Plumber’s power of attorney holder Mohd Salim Ishaq Patel, a purported frontman of Parkar, and the transaction was backed by valid documents.
On April 13, ED provisionally attached eight properties belonging to Malik, his family members, and the family firms Solidus Investments and Malik Infrastructure. The properties are the Goawala Compound, a commercial unit and three flats in Kurla west, two flats in Bandra west, and 147 acres of agricultural land in Osmanabad district.