Mumbai Police on Monday filed a charge sheet in a special court against Iqbal Hassan Kaskar, younger brother of underworld gangster Dawood Ibrahim, and two others in an alleged case of extortion and land grabbing.
The other two accused are Sardar Teli and Abdul Rehman Sheikh.
Police have charged them under the Indian Penal Code and the Maharashtra Control for Organised Crime Act for evicting a woman from her house, which obstructed the Sara Shopping Centre in South Mumbai.
On a plea by police, designated judge A P Bhangale had attached Sara and Sahara Shopping Complex, allegedly owned by Dawood.
Police said the three accused in this case were front men of Dawood and the gangster had invested in real estate through them to channel the flow of black money.
They claimed to have recorded the telephonic conversation between Kaskar and the two accused over these properties, which indicated that they had indulged in extortion and land grabbing.
Police informed the court that preparations were on for transcribing the text of these talks and cassettes of these alleged conversations have been sent for spectrographic analysis.
The accused have been charged under the Indian Penal Code with sections 387 (putting a person in fear of death or grievous hurt to commit extortion), 392 (robbery), 120(b) (conspiracy) and 34 (common intention).
They have also been charged with sections 3 and 4 of MCOCA, which deal with offences related to organised crime syndicate and possessing unaccounted wealth on behalf of such syndicate.
In a related development, 370 tenants of the shopping complexes and joint owners of the properties moved the Mumbai high court on Monday challenging the order of the special court to attach the property.
Justice S S Parkar directed the prosecution to file its reply and deferred the matter till June 10. The petitioners argued that properties were jointly owned by them and did not belong to all the accused alone, therefore the attachment order was illegal.
