Finally, Dawood kin's flat auctioned at Rs 18 mn

The government auctioned a flat belonging to the late Haseena Ismail Parkar, sister of absconder mafia don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, five years after her death in 2014, informed sources said on Monday.

The flat - measuring around 600 sq feet in the Gordon Hall Apartments, Wing A, in Nagpada - was auctioned for Rs 18 million (Rs 1.80 crore) under the Smuggling and Foreign Exchange Manipulators Act (SAFEMA).

The prime property in south Mumbai was put up for auction after Parkar's relatives failed to prove that it was purchased with money acquired through legal means.

The flat - auctioned at the Y.B. Chavan Pratisthan - had a reserve price tag of Rs 1.69 crore based on the local estimated market value, but it fetched Rs 1.1 million extra for the government.

The details of the auction and the identity of the buyer are not available.

Originally owned by Dawood, the flat was later taken over by his mother, Amina, and then by Parkar after he fled the country in the mid-1980s.

Following the March 12, 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, masterminded by the don, the government had sealed all his properties in 1998.

In April 2018, after a Supreme Court order, the authorities attached seven of his properties in south Mumbai and the Parkar flat was the second one belonging to the don that has been auctioned under SAFEMA.

Married to Ismail Parkar, Parkar had allegedly taken to active criminal activities after her husband was killed by Shailesh Haldankar and three other sharpshooters of the rival don Arun Gawli gang in July 1992.

In September 1992, Dawood avenged his brother-in-law's murder when he sent a heavily armed 24-strong elimination squad which gunned down Haldankar and two policemen in the state-run Sir J.J. Hospital.

It became legendary as the J.J. Hospital shootout case and went down as among the most daring mafia operations in the city's underbelly.

The seventh among 11 siblings, Haseena Parkar independently led the crime syndicate abandoned by Dawood said to be worth over Rs 5,000 crore. She is survived by three children.

In 2017, a biopic on her life "Haseena Parkar" directed by Apoorva Lakhia with Shradhha Kapoor playing the title role of the female don was released, but got average response among the viewers.

--IANS

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