Mumbai: Maharashtra Minister and NCP leader Nawab Malik has been sent to judicial custody by a special PMLA court in Mumbai. He was arrested by Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Feb 23rd, in connection with Dawood Ibrahim money laundering case and was on custodial remand. ED sources have claimed that they have established a money trail linking Malik to people connected to the underworld. ED sources have also claimed that they have found details of Benami investments of the politician in a few real estate projects.
The ED had on February 18 arrested Dawood's brother Iqbal Kaskar in the matter. Salim Qureshi, an aide of Chhota Shakeel was also interrogated in the matter. On February 3, the NIA received a piece of information that Dawood Ibrahim was raising terror funds and was working with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Al Qaeda (AQ). He was controlling criminal activities in India through close aides.
The ED filed a PMLA case against Dawood. Another case was lodged against his brother Iqbal Kaskar, Iqbal Kashka, Iqbal Mirchi and 19 others. Later both the case were merged by the ED. The Central probe agency conducted nine raids and recovered incriminating documents from the premises of Dawood's aide. Also, Chhota Shakeel's relative Salim told the probe agency that in 2006 he met Chhota Shakeel three-four times during his Pakistan visit.
