Money laundering: Shahvali Khan moves plea to become approver, withdraws it hours later

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) booked Khan in connection with the money laundering case involving the alleged usurpation of Goawala Compound in Kurla West by Malik. The agency has claimed that Malik and members of the Dawood Ibrahim gang unauthorisedly took over the property worth around ₹300 crore.

Mumbai: Sardar Shahvali Khan – the 1993 Mumbai serial bombings case convict – on Tuesday filed a plea before the special PMLA court and expressed his willingness to become an approver in the money laundering case against NCP leader Nawab Malik, however, he withdrew the application after a couple of hours.

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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) booked Khan in connection with the money laundering case involving the alleged usurpation of Goawala Compound in Kurla West by Malik. The agency has claimed that Malik and members of the Dawood Ibrahim gang unauthorisedly took over the property worth around ₹300 crore.

Khan was produced before the special PMLA court, hearing Malik’s case on Tuesday around 11:50am when he pleaded for pardon. Since a lawyer was not representing Khan, the court explained to him about legal provisions related to pardon and to become an approver as well as asked ED to respond to his plea.

Later, advocates Ashutosh Singh and Amit Hargude informed the court that they had instructions to appear for Khan and soon thereafter Khan appeared before the court again and withdrew the plea.

ED has accused Malik of “indirectly funding the D-gang activities by usurping a prime piece of land in Kurla with the help of Dawood’s deceased, late Haseena Parkar, by using a fabricated power-of-attorney. In its chargesheet, the agency claimed that the former Maharashtra minister had paid only ₹20 lakh to acquire the property, Goawala Compound, in a deal dating back to September 2005 and paid the amount to people other than the owner of the three-acre compound, Munira Plumber.”

ED claimed that Malik and Parkar connived to usurp the land after the death of owner Munira’s father, Fazalabbas Goawala, following which “nobody was looking after the said property.”

The chargesheet filed by the agency stated that Malik, a local muscleman, first “illegally” occupied a store in the compound and got the tenancy registered in the name of his brother, Aslam Malik.

Parkar’s driver-cum-bodyguard Salim Patel had allegedly met Munira, posing as a social worker and convinced her to execute a power of attorney in his favour so that he could help her clear the encroachments in the property as well as settle disputes with tenants, according to ED. Patel, on Parkar’s instructions, prepared a supplementary power of attorney, which was used to transfer the property to Solidus Investments [owned by Malik’s family], whose tenancy rights he had also acquired. Solidus was a tenant at the Goawala compound.