A Mumbai-based company has purchased the bungalow of United Arab Emirates-based underworld don Iqbal Mohammed Memon here for a whopping Rs48.5 million in an open auction, giving rise to speculation that he has repurchased his property.
Sanjay Sharma
BHOPAL: A Mumbai-based company has purchased the bungalow of United Arab Emirates-based underworld don Iqbal Mohammed Memon here for a whopping Rs48.5 million in an open auction, giving rise to speculation that he has repurchased his property.
Iqbal Mirchi, as he is known, is wanted by police in India in several cases, particularly the 1993 Mumbai blasts. The United Nations considers him among the top 50 drug barons in the world and believes that he is a senior figure in the 'D' (Dawood Ibrahim) Company.
Spread over 8,343 square feet, the bungalow came into focus in 1999 after the body of Anil Sharma, a sharpshooter working for another underworld don, Abu Salem, was found there.
Registered in the name of Mirchi's wife Hawa Bibi, it was attached by the Central Excise and Customs Department in 2001 under the Narcotics Drugs & Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act 1985 and The Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act, 1976, officials said.
It is said that Mirchi got hold of the bungalow from an Anglo-Indian lady whose husband worked as a railway contractor in Bhopal. Mirchi got in touch with the old and ailing lady, took her for treatment to Mumbai and got the huge bungalow registered in his wife's name.
However, a special team from Mumbai - comprising additional commissioner of customs and excise MR Mohanty; superintendent Nalini Kaveel and others succeeded in auctioning it to a Mumbai-based company Thursday for Rs48.5 million as against the declared reserve price of Rs9.4 million.
"The aggressive attitude of the buyer since the beginning of the auction showed that he didn't want to lose it to anyone at any cost," said an eyewitness.
Sources identified the buyer as Aamitr Khan of ID Construction Company, Mumbai. Officials, however, declined to reveal name of the buyer due to security reasons.
It is suspected that the buyer could be someone connected to Mirchi as he paid five times the reserved price of the bungalow.
Madhya Pradesh, it may be pointed out here, is increasingly becoming a haven for Pakistani intelligence agency Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI)-underworld combine.
The police here may though not be fully convinced that the state has become a favourite haunt of ISI-underworld combine, the intelligence officials are worried over tell-tale signs of their presence showing in various parts of the state every now and then.
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