Day after min's arrest, it's biz as usual inside Goawala complex

The Enforcement Directorate claims its probe has found that arrested Maharashtra minorities minister Nawab Malik’s dubious links with the Goawala Building plot in Kurla date back to the early 1990s.

Mumbai: After illegally occupying a general store in 1992, his next acquisition was a company owned by a man named Kanubhai Patel, a tenant of two godowns. Patel’s firm Solidus Investment Pvt Ltd was transferred to Nawab Malik for a consideration of Rs 10 lakh. According to the official version, Patel did it at the instance of Malik’s father “who was a dear friend”. Over the years, Malik found ways to acquire more units on the plot, and going by the ED’s allegation, is now the illegal owner of the entire three-acre property valued at Rs 300 crore.

TOI visited Goawala Building compound on Thursday, a day after the minister’s arrest, and found controversy lingering in the air. Many residents were reluctant to speak about the case or the role of gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s late sister Haseena Parkar. The compound itself, which is flanked by Kalpana and Sheetal talkies on the arterial LBS Marg, had a police deployment at the entrance.