Nawab Malik pleas HC to quash money laundering case against him

Maharashtra Minister and NCP leader Nawab Malik, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on February 23 in connection with a Prevention of Money Laundering case involving underworld Don Dawood Ibrahim, has moved to the Bombay High Court against his arrest.

Malik in his plea has urged the Court to quash the PMLA case lodged by the central probe agency.

He has also mentioned his plea that his arrest was illegal and sought to be released immediately.

Malik is in the ED custody till March 3. The ED had on February 18 arrested Dawood's brother Iqbal Kaskar in the matter.

Salim Qureshi, an aide of Chhota Shakeel, was also interrogated in the matter.

On February 3 the NIA had received an information that Dawood Ibrahim was raising terror funds and was working with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Al Qaeda (AQ). He was controlling criminal activities in India through his close aides.

The ED filed a PMLA case against Dawood. Another case was lodged against his brother Iqbal Kaskar, Iqbal Mirchi and 19 others. Later both the cases were merged by the ED.

The Central probe agency conducted nine raids and recovered incriminating documents from the premises of Dawood's aides.

Chhota Shakeel's relative Salim Fruit told the probe agency that in 2006 he met Chhota Shakeel three to four times during his Pakistan visit.