Officials who probed 1993 Mumbai blasts put question mark on basis of ED's case against Nawab Malik

A significant part of the Enforcement Directorate’s case against arrested Nationalist Congress Party leader Nawab Malik rests on his alleged connections with a 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict named Sardar Shah Wali Khan. However, officials who were part of the 1993 blasts investigation told National Herald on Friday that Khan was never a part of Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar’s gang and was only peripherally associated with the blasts.

The ED had on Wednesday arrested Malik, charging him with “funding” Dawood’s terrorist activities by allegedly purchasing a plot of land in 2005 from the latter’s sister, Haseena Parkar for Rs 55 lakh.

The ED’s 25-page remand application, filed in a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court, mentions Khan, whose statement the ED recorded during its probe.

For some reason, the remand application also mentions others involved in the 1993 blasts, including Mushtaq alias Tiger Memon and Javed Patel alias Javed Chikna.

According to the ED, Khan played an “important role” in the offence and has provided the agency a lot of information about the alleged land deal that occurred between Malik and Haseena, with her driver-cum-bodyguard Salim Patil acting as intermediary.

A senior officer who was part of the 1993 bomb blasts case investigation from start to finish, however, told National Herald that Sardar Khan was almost a nobody when it came to the gang hierarchy, and was never even a ‘D-gang member’ in the first place. Even in the serial blasts, he was not involved in any major aspect, be it the planting of the bombs, assembling them or the landing of the RDX in India.

"Khan was in the real estate agent with no criminal record before he was arrested in the serial blasts case, and has never done any work for Dawood or his gang. He was known to Tiger Memon and attended one of the many meetings that were held to plan the blasts, and that was the extent of his involvement. When one of the other convicts in the case turned approver, he gave us a list of names of people who had attended meetings, and all those attendees are now serving life sentences,” the officer said.

He added that given Khan’s negligible standing in Tiger Memon’s gang, and absolutely none when it came to Dawood, it was uncertain how much weight his words could carry when it came to Dawood’s criminal activities.

“Haseena Parkar did conduct a lot of land-related dealings, but she conducted most of them on her own accord and for her own benefit. The fact that she was Dawood’s sister worked in her favour without her having to say it out in as many words, but it is wrong to automatically assume that every penny went to Dawood or his network. We had observed this when we were attaching properties belonging to the Kaskar family following the blasts,” the officer further said.

Khan is currently serving a life sentence in the Aurangabad central jail, and had once come out on bail in 1995, officers said.