Three properties that fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim owned earlier were sold in an auction on Tuesday to a trust that wants to revamp them, ANI reported. The Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust had made the highest bid of around Rs 11.5 crore for the three properties.
The properties – Shabnam Guest House, six flats in the Damarwala building and Hotel Raunaq Afroz – are located in the Bhendi Bazaar area of Mumbai. The trust was founded in 2009 to work on a project to redevelop the congested locality.
“These buildings are in dilapidated condition and unfit for living,” a spokesperson for the SBU trust said. “Therefore, to ensure the safety of the families living in these buildings and to carry on with the redevelopment project, we participated in the bidding and acquired these properties.”
The government had seized the properties under the Smuggling and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act after the gangster fled the country. A previous auction in December 2015 had been unsuccessful, as the organisation that won the bid was unable to raise the earnest money.
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