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ED arrests NCP’s Nawab Malik in Dawood-linked PMLA case
Malik, the 62-year-old minister of minority affairs and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) spokesperson, was remanded to 8-day ED custody
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested senior Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Wednesday in a money laundering case allegedly involving fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his associates, sparking a political war between the state’s ruling alliance and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Malik, the 62-year-old minister of minority affairs and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) spokesperson, was remanded to 8-day ED custody.
ED officials said Malik was involved in suspicious property deals involving men with links to the 1993 Mumbai bombings, which killed 257 people. Malik’s alleged role in a property deal involving the driver and bodyguard of Ibrahim’s late sister is also under the scanner, added officials.
The federal agency has linked the Maharashtra minister directly to the Dawood Ibrahim gang, claiming that he usurped a prime property at Kurla — Goawala Compound, admeasuring about 3 acres and valued at about ₹300 crore — and while the land owner did not get a penny, Malik paid an amount of ₹60 lakh to Dawood’s sister Haseena Parkar for her share in the property and thus, funded the gangster’s illegal activities.
“By paying consideration for illegally occupied share to Haseena Parkar, Nawab Malik aided the D-Company financially,” said the ED’s application seeking Malik’s custody. “The association of Nawab Malik with above mentioned D-Company members is clear from statements of witnesses,” said the plea.
Malik on his part maintained that he had done nothing wrong and the transactions were legitimate, backed by proper documentation.
“Will not bow, will not fear, will expose,” he told the media shortly before his arrest.
Malik’s daughter, Sana Shaikh, said: “It’s a politically motivated action. ED officers reached our home with a pre-planned strategy. They didn’t find anything at our house. Despite that, they took him. Whoever is talking against the Centre is being picked up by the agencies. They have become a tool. My father used to talk against injustice and the Centre, that’s why they have picked him up.We are ready for a fight and we are sure we will win.”
Malik’s arrest stoked a political storm with members of Maharashtra’s ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) rallying in his support and the BJP demanding his resignation. He is the second NCP minister to be arrested after then home minister Anil Deshmukh was arrested by ED on November 2, 2021, on charges of corruption.
MVA leaders said the arrest was a misuse of central agencies and appeared to rule out Malik’s resignation.
“Which case have they dug up? It is simple. They take the name of Dawood, especially if there is a Muslim activist. There is no relation but it is done,” said NCP chief Sharad Pawar, adding that he, too, was similarly “targeted” in the early 90s when he was the chief minister.
Pawar said his party knew Malik would be harassed as he was speaking against the BJP-led central government.
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut termed the questioning as a challenge to the state government. Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole termed Malik’s arrest an act of “revenge” and said his party stood firmly with Malik. Pawar also convened an emergency meeting of his party at his residence and also spoke to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee over the phone, according to NCP minister Chhagan Bhujbal.
Revenue minister and Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat said party’s in charge H K Patil had extended support to NCP over the issue. Late on Wednesday, Pawar and CM Uddhav Thackeray along with leaders from all three MVA parties were in a closed door meeting to discuss the situation.
Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrakant Patil said NCP could move court if they felt there was any injustice. “If there is nothing wrong done by their leaders, why are they scared of the action,” Patil asked.
Malik, a five-time lawmaker from Anushakti Nagar constituency in Mumbai, is one of the most public faces of the MVA government and hit the headlines last year when he held near-daily press conferences to target the Narcotics Control Bureau after the arrest of actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan in a drug case.
The process for Malik’s questioning and eventual arrest began early on Wednesday when a team of ED officials and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel reached his residence in central Mumbai at 5am.
The officers asked the cabinet minister to accompany them to the ED office at Ballard Estate in south Mumbai in order to question him. Malik was accompanied by his son Amir.
The questioning began at approximately 7.30am and continued till at least 2.30pm. At 2.45pm, he was placed under arrest, and, 15 minutes later, taken to state-run JJ Hospital for a medical check-up.
ED officials said Malik was involved in property deals linked to Sardar Shahwali Khan, a civil contractor and an alleged close aide of Tiger Memon, who was convicted for conspiracy in the 1993 Mumbai bombings case. The agency is also probing Malik’s alleged role in a property deal involving Saleem Ishfaq Patel, the driver and bodyguard of Ibrahim’s late sister Haseena Parkar.
In the PMLA court, ED was represented by additional solicitor general Anil Singh and special prosecutor Hiten Venegaonkar, both of whom urged the special court to grant 14-day custody to ED.
Singh pointed out that the case pertained to a property in Goawala Compound in Kurla, owned by a woman identified as Munira Plumber, who inherited the property from her father. Singh added that Malik purchased the property through his family firm, Solidus Investment, but in her statement to ED, Plumber claimed that she gave power of attorney to Patel only for the limited purpose of removing encroachments from the property. Patel brought in Parkar under the guise of helping the owner.
ED claimed that by then, Malik had already entered the property by purchasing a rented section and joined hands with Parkar through Patel and Khan.
Singh said both Malik and Parkar were trying to grab the land, payments were on the minister’s behalf in the form of ₹55 lakh in cash and ₹5 lakh by cheque to Parkar for an alleged share in the property
ED’s legal team said the meeting between Plumber and the buyers was arranged Shahwali Khan. The ASG said that Malik introduced bogus tenants on the property to decrease its registration value, but genuine tenants or owners did not get a penny.
He said Malik, in connivance with Parkar, took over the property while “the real owners were not even allowed to visit it.”
“In short, money from Dawood Ibrahim was used to acquire the property. Parkar acquired the property for Dawood in India,” he added.
Senior advocate Amit Desai and advocate Taraq Sayed, who represented the NCP leader, questioned the applicability of provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to the case.
“All the transactions have taken place in the year 1999 and 2003, and the PMLA came into force in 2005,” Desai said. He objected to the use of the term “terror funding” by the agency and asked why it wanted to investigate Malik for his alleged role in “terror funding” after 20 years.
Desai also pointed out that Malik was a revenue minister and an MLA several times. “Because he has dealt with somebody who was involved in illegal activities doesn’t mean you can say he is involved in terror funding, that too for a legal transaction,” he argued.
In addition to this case but not directly related to it, ED is investigating alleged money-laundering activity by Ibrahim’s gang in Mumbai and registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) on the basis of two First Information Reports (FIR) – one registered by Thane police in September 2017 against Ibrahim’s youngest brother Iqbal Kaskar and others, and the other registered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on February 3 regarding alleged terrorist activities of the gang.
During the course of investigation, ED arrested Kaskar on February 18. In addition, the agency also questioned Parkar’s son Alishah, and gangster Chhota Shakeel’s brother-in-law Salim Quereshi aka Salim Fruitwala in the same case.
