Court grants bail to Haseena

Mumbai, May 24 (UNI) A local court today granted bail to Haseena Parkar, sister of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, who is facing charges of alleged extortion in a Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) dispute case.

While granting bail in the sum of Rs 25,000, the Additional chief metropolitan Magistrate V K Sharma directed Haseena to attend the anti-exortion cell in the next 30 days between 1200 hrs to 1600 hrs. Haseena had been absconding since April 21 and had appeared amidst high drama in a local court on May 22.

The court observed that the section levelled against Haseena by the prosecution was not tenable. The Magistrate said that as per section 383 (extortion) of Indian Penal Code (IPC), a case cannot be made out against the applicant. At the most, a case of cheating under section 420 of IPC has been made out against the accused by broker Vinod Avlani, who had filed a written complaint that he had paid money to the applicant.

The Magistrate directed Haseena to deposit her passport with the Investigating agency, cooperate in the investigations and not to leave Mumbai city.

It may be recalled that Vinod Pranlal Avlani, a real estate developer and builder, in a complaint to the crime branch on December 19 last year, had accused eight people including, Haseena and Sandeep Shukla of cheating him of Rs 30 lakhs after the failure of a SRA project.

Later, the ACB on April 12, arrested a tout named Chandresh Shah while accepting a bribe of Rs 1.5 lakh. Chandresh claimed he was working at the behest of a senior Crime Branch official.

This led the ACB to raid the Crime Branch's Unit-I office. The ACB had earlier recorded several conversations between Shukla, Chandresh and one Raju, who too claimed to be a tout of the Crime Branch's Unit-I.

Shukla needed Rs two crore for his SRA projects in Antop hill, Nirmal Nagar and Wadala and was introduced to Avlani by Chandresh.

Avlani agreed to pay Shukla Rs two crore in return for a 51 per cent partnership in the projects.

Avlani paid Shukla Rs 30 lakh in the presence of Parker and made her a guarantor for the money. However, the SRA project did not materialise and Avlani demanded his Rs 30 lakh back.

When Avlani lodged a complaint with the crime branch, Shukla ironically approached the ACB with a complaint that officers of Crime Branch Unit-I were seeking favours from him in the case.

UNI