Finally, buyer for Dawood’s Mumbai properties, 3 sold

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, November 14

After years of unsuccessfully getting bidders to buy three properties belonging to gangster Dawood Ibrahim, the government finally managed to get the Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust (SBUT) to purchase them for Rs 11.58 crore.

The properties, a restaurant named Delhi Zaika (also called Raunaq Afroz), a building called Shabnam Guest House and six rooms in the Dambarwala building were put on auction by the Competent Authority under the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators Act (SAFEMA). The properties were confiscated by the authorities under the provisions of SAFEMA.

While the Raunaq Afroz hotel went for Rs 4.53 crore, Shabnam Guest House and the six rooms were sold for Rs 3.52 crore and 3.53 crore.

Past auctions had failed as a few bidders showed up or potential buyers could not raise the funds for the purchase. The police, however, feel Dawood gang may have threatened potential buyers.

Sources here said the six rooms housed the gangster and his relatives before they left India in the late 1980s. The restaurant was one of the earliest properties allegedly purchased by the gangster.

SBUT, headed by the head priest of the Dawoodi Bohra community (no connection with Ibrahim), is redeveloping Bhendi Bazaar area in which these properties fall. In a statement, SBUT said it acquired these buildings “to ensure the safety of the families living there and to carry on with redevelopment project.”