Mumbai: Three south Mumbai properties of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim were bought by the Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust (SBUT) for Rs 11.58 crore in an auction conducted by officials of a Union finance ministry authority, SAFEMA (Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators Forfeiture of Property Act) on Tuesday.
The properties included the two-storied ‘Shabnam Guest House’ at Yakub Street in Bhendi Bazar, Hotel Raunak Afroz (now known as hotel Delhi Zaika) and six flats at the Damarwala building on Pakmodia Street, where Dawood had stayed before fleeing India in the early eighties.
According to the SBUT, the three properties fall under its ongoing Bhendi Bazaar redevelopment project and are unfit for living. On Tuesday, authorities carried out the auction at the IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Churchgate. This is the second time in two years the government attempted to auction the three properties belonging to Dawood in Mumbai.
In 2015, Hotel Rounak Afroz had gone under the hammer for Rs 4.28 crore. However, the bidder could not arrange the bid amount then. A junked car was also auctioned for Rs 32,000, which was later set ablaze and disposed off. The auctioned assets are among properties controlled by Dawood and his aides and had remained unsold since the 1993 Mumbai blasts. Dawood allegedly masterminded the blasts along with Tiger Memon with the help of Pakistan’s spy agency, ISI, after they were attached by the authorities.
