Mumbai: The Union Finance Ministry of India has invited bids to put on auction properties belonging to underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his family located in the city’s Pakmodia Street.

According to a tender notice published in newspapers, the auction for the Masulla Building in the Bhendi Bazaar area in the central part of the city will be held on August 9 with a reserve price of Rs. 79.43 lakh under the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act (Safema).

The authorities have set the earnest money deposit at Rs. 25 lakh with the last date of August 6, as per the notice.

The process of selling the property will be conducted through e-auction, public auction, and sealed tenders on the day of August 9 that is slated to be held at the YB Chavan auditorium between 10 am and 12 noon.

The Saifee Buhani Upliftment Trust had won the last year’s bids with the highest price bid of Rs. 11.50 crore for the sale of Dawood’s three properties that were put on the block.

Under the Safema Act too, bids have also been invited to auction nine properties located in Mumbai, Aurangabad, Valsad, Daman, Surat, and Ahmedabad.

The auction of the property move comes after the Supreme Court had on April 20 directed the Centre to take over all these properties. The order was made after the apex court declined a plea filed by his mother and sister, Amina Bi Kaskar and Haseena Parkar which challenged the decision of the Enforcement Directorate and other agencies to attach all the property owned by them in Mumbai as “proceeds of crime”.

The Supreme Court order directed the Centre to forfeit not less than seven prime properties including flats in Mumbai’s Nagpada area.

The Government, in 1988, had sealed all the properties under the Safema laws and in turn, the move was challenged by his mother and sister combined.

Both the Safema tribunal and the Delhi High Court in 1998 and 2012 respectively had upheld the seizure move.

Back in November 2017, three south Mumbai properties belonging to him – Hotel Raunaq Afroz, also known as Delhi Zaika; Shabnam Guest House and six rooms in Damarwala building – belonging to the fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim were auctioned for Rs. 11.58 crore under the Safema Act.

All these three properties, which were in dilapidated conditions, fall under our ongoing Bhendi Bazaar redevelopment project.

The Don is accused in the February-March 1993 serial blasts killing more than 150 people in the then Bombay and now he is believed to be living in Karachi.

He has a great number of properties worth billions of rupees across many countries including India, Britain, Spain, Morocco, Turkey, Australia, Cyprus and the UAE.

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