Mumbai Apr 21 PTI The Enforcement Directorate ED on Thursday submitted a charge-sheet in a court here against Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik in an alleged money laundering case linked to fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim nearly two months after arresting him in the matterMalik 62 a senior Nationalist Congress Party NCP leader was arrested by the ED on February 23 in the case and is currently in jail under judicial custodyThe over-5000-page charge-sheet was submitted in the courts registry ED lawyers saidThe special court for Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLA cases will take cognizance of the charge-sheet after verification of the documents they saidThe EDs case is based on an FIR filed recently by the National Investigation Agency NIA against Ibrahim a designated global terrorist and key 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts accused and his aides under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act UAPAEarlier during remand hearings the central financial investigation agency had told the court Malik was the key conspirator and beneficiary of the entire charadeIn lieu of getting control of illegal occupation of this property he funded a prominent member of D-Gang Dawood gang the ED had saidIt has claimed that for usurping this property members of the D-Gang and Nawab Malik connived together and executed several legal documents to put a facade of genuinity over this criminal actDuring his custodial interrogation previously arrested accused Iqbal Kaskar brother of Dawood Ibrahim revealed certain facts about his sister Haseena Parker and her involvement in usurping high-valued properties of innocent citizens in Mumbai by using the clout of D-Gang it had saidIn course of the investigation it was revealed one such victim of the D-Gang was one Munira Plumber the agency had saidPlumbers prime property having present market value of Rs 300 crore was usurped by Malik through Solidus Investments a company owned by the ministers family with active connivance of members of the D-Gang including Haseena Parkar the ED had told the courtPlumber in her statement to the ED has said she had not sold this property to Malik the agency saidIt is also apparent that Malik is guilty of the offence of money laundering as defined under provisions of the PMLA the probe agency has saidMalik who has denied all charges levelled against him has moved the Supreme Court against an order of the Bombay High Court which had rejected his interim application seeking immediate release from jail PTI AVI KRK RSY RSY

Mumbai Mar 30 PTI A retired Army man on Wednesday became the 20th prosecution witness to turn hostile in the 2008 Malegaon blast case The witness who held the post of naik in the Army had given a statement to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad ATS in 2009 about a camp allegedly organized by some of the accused at Deolali near Nashik He had seen two of the accused Lt Colonel Prasad Purohit and Sudhakar Chaturvedi attending the camp he had told the ATS which was then probing the case The probe was later taken over by the National Investigation Agency During his deposition on Wednesday before special NIA court judge P R Sitre the witness failed to recognize Purohit who was present He also denied giving any statement to the ATS Following which the court declared him hostile on the prosecutions request A witness presented by the probe agency is declared hostile when he or she does not support the prosecutions case in the court Six people were killed and over 100 injured after an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque at Malegaon in north Maharashtra about 200 kilometres from Mumbai on September 29 2008 The BJPs Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur is a prime accused in the case As many as 245 witnesses have been examined in the case of which 20 have turned hostile until now The other accused in the case are Major retd Ramesh Upadhyay Ajay Rahirkar Sudhakar Dwivedi and Sameer Kulkarni All the accused are out on bail PTI AVI KRK KRK

Mumbai Mar 30 PTI A sessions court here on Wednesday refused anticipatory bail to IPS officer Saurabh Tripathi in an alleged extortion case registered against him by angadiyas Additional sessions judge R M Sadrani rejected Deputy Commissioner of Police Tripathis plea The detailed order was not available yet Tripathi moved the court through his lawyer Aniket Nikam after he was named as an accused in the case registered on the basis of a complaint filed by south Mumbai-based angadiyas traditional couriers The IPS officer was falsely implicated in the case advocate Nikam told the court contending that Tripathi had no reason to extort money from angadiyas Prosecution opposed the pre-arrest bail plea saying that he was a highly influential person and could tamper with evidence An inspector an assistant inspector and a sub-inspector attached to the LT Marg police station in south Mumbai have been arrested in the case As per the complainants the accused extorted money from them last December by threatening to tip off the Income Tax department about cash movements and other business activities carried out by them PTI AVI KRK KRK

Mumbai Nov 17 PTI A magistrates court here on Wednesday declared former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh a proclaimed offender in an extortion case registered against him and other police officers in the cityThe crime branch of Mumbai Police which is probing the case had sought the proclamation saying that the IPS officer could not be traced even after the issuance of a non-bailable warrant against himUnder section 82 of the Code of Criminal Procedure a court can publish a proclamation requiring an accused to appear if a warrant issued against him or her cannot be executedAs per section 83 after issuing such a proclamation the court can also order attachment of the proclaimed offenders propertiesFormer assistant police inspector Sachin Waze is also an accused in the case registered at Goregaon police station in the cityBesides Param Bir Singh co-accused Vinay Singh and Riyaz Bhatti were also declared as proclaimed offender by additional chief metropolitan magistrate S B BhajipaleBimal Agrawal a real estate developer and hotelier had alleged that the accused extorted Rs 9 lakh from him for not conducting raid on two bars and restaurants which he ran in partnership and also forced him to buy two smartphones worth around Rs 292 lakh for them The incidents occurred between January 2020 and March 2021 he had claimedFollowing his complaint a case was filed under Indian Penal Code sections 384 and 385 both pertaining to extortion and 34 common intention against six accusedSingh is facing an extortion case in Thane tooHe was shunted out from the post of Mumbai police commissioner in March 2021 after Waze was arrested in the case of the SUV with explosives found near industrialist Mukesh Ambanis south Mumbai residence and the death of Thane businessman Mansukh HiranSingh subsequently accused then Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh of corruption a charge the latter denied PTI AVI KRK KRK KRK