Goawala Compound case: ED submits draft charges against Nawab Malik

The Enforcement Directorate has submitted draft charges against NCP leader Nawab Malik and others in a money laundering case involving a ?300 crore plot in Mumbai. The charges will be heard on July 24. Malik is accused of funding the activities of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar's gang by usurping the plot with the help of Haseena Parkar, Dawood's sister. Malik was arrested in February in connection with the case.

MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday submitted draft charges against Nationalist Congress Party leader Nawab Malik and others in the money laundering case registered against them for allegedly usurping a ₹300-crore prime plot in Kurla in connivance with Haseena Parkar, the late sister of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar.

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On July 24, the special court for cases against MP and MLA will now hear arguments on charges to be framed against the former Maharashtra minister and three others booked with him in the case. Framing of charges will pave the way for the beginning of the trial. On July 24, the court will also consider a plea moved by Malik’s lawyer, asking the court to supply all the documents and evidence gathered by the probe agency during the investigation.

Malik was arrested by the ED on February 23 in connection with a money-laundering case registered by it on February 14. The money-laundering case in turn was based on an FIR registered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Delhi on February 3, 2022, against fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar and some of his close associates.

The ED has accused Malik of “indirectly funding the D-gang’s activities by usurping a prime piece of land in Kurla with the help of Dawood’s deceased sister, 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 in Goawala Compound in Kurla, 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.

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

The chargesheet filed by the agency stated that Malik, an alleged 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 Plumber, posing as a social worker convinced her to execute a power of attorney in his favour so that he could help her clear the encroachments on the property as well as settle disputes with tenants.

According to the 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 Goawala compound.