Explained: The case in which Nawab Malik has been arrested

Last year in November, Fadnavis alleged that Malik had links with the underworld. He claimed that the NCP leader had bought the property in September 2005 from two men, Sardar Shahwali Khan and Mohammed Salim Ishaq Patel alias Salim Patel, both accused of having links with the underworld don.

Hyderabad:NCP leader and Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik was arrested by Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday in connection with the money laundering case against the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his associates. A 2005 property deal is likely to be the part of the charges against him. It was former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis who first levelled the allegations against Malik that he had bought a property at a lower price in Mumbai's Kurla from one of the associates of Dawood Ibrahim.

The allegations around the deal

Last year in November, Fadnavis alleged that Malik had links with the underworld. He claimed that the NCP leader had bought the property in September 2005 from two men, Sardar Shahwali Khan and Mohammed Salim Ishaq Patel alias Salim Patel, both accused of having links with the underworld don.

Of the two, Khan, according to Fadnavis, had been sentenced by TADA court to life imprisonment in 2007 in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, while the other, Mohammed Salim Ishaq Patel alias Salim Patel, was a frontman of Dawood Ibrahim’s late sister Hassena Parkar. He too was arrested along with her in 2007 in a land grabbing case, according to Fadnavis.

Fadnavis alleged that a 2.80-acre prime property in Kurla was bought by Solidus Investment Private Limited for a meagre Rs 30 lakh and Malik's son Faraq was the signatory on the deal. Malik had resigned from the company his family had set up in 1973 after he became a minister in 2019. Malik, as per Fadnavis, had paid Rs 15 lakh to Shahwali Khan and Rs 5 lakh to Salim Patel, Rs 10 lakh lesser than the actual deal. While the market rate of the land that Solidus bought was Rs 8,500 per sq m, the Maliks, the former CM alleged, got it for Rs 25 per sq m.

Nawab Malik's defense

To Fadnavis' allegations, Malik had said: "The deal in question was getting ownership rights as we were the tenants of a landlady (the Goawala Compound owner) who had vested her Power of Attorney (PoA) to M. Salim Ishaq Patel. A building, 'Madinatul Aman CHS', with over 125 tenants has stood there since 1984 and on the adjoining plot, there are slums. So how is Fadnavis saying we created fake tenants to grab the plot at throwaway rates."

Malik said when they went to register their ownership rights, they discovered that the father of Sardar Shahavali Khan had grabbed 300 metres of the plot with his name figuring in the land records, and the tenants paid him off to clear his illegal claims. "It's a well-known fact that Sardar Shahvali Khan was a convict in the March 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts, but we had no deal with him... As for M. Ishaq Patel's alleged links with Dawood or his sister, as for us he was the authorised PoA holder of the landlady," Malik said in November last year.

"We did not transact any land business deal with the mafia, as falsely alleged by Fadnavis, all transactions, financials and documents are on record in the public domain... In fact, if Fadnavis had asked me, I would have provided him with more details which his aides have failed to," Malik smiled.

The two men who 'sold the land'

Shahawali Khan, one of the two persons from whom Malik bought the land according to Fadnavis, is serving a life sentence in the Mumbai blasts case. He was accused of being part of the team that was given training by alleged mastermind Tiger Memon and was also involved in deciding the placement of the bombs at some locations. Shahawali has been in jail since June 2007. The second person, Salim Patel, Fadnavis said, was the bodyguard and driver of Haseena Parkar. He held the power of attorney on all land deals.