By IANS
Mumbai : A special court in Mumbai Wednesday acquitted fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim's brother Iqbal Kaskar and five others, accused of building an unauthorised shopping mall on public land in 2003, for lack of evidence.
Kaskar was accused in the Sara-Sahara case, an illegal shopping mall allegedly owned by Dawood.
The Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court freed Kaskar along with builder Ghulam Nabi Ramzan Tanwar and four other accused officials of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM)– Narendra Ramlochan Rajbhar, Hasmukh Pravinchandra Shah, Kiran Vasant Achrekar and Shirish Madhukar Salvekar.
The court, however, found three others – Tariq Parveen, Abdul Rehman Abdul Gafoor Sheikh alias Rehman Boss and Abdul Sattar Haji Jinabhai Radhanpura alias Sattar Teli – guilty in the case.
The three guilty along with Dawood Ibrahim, Shakeel, Kaskar and his aide Parveen and four civic officials had been charged under various sections of the MCOCA and Indian Penal Code (IPC) for conspiracy, criminal intimidation, extortion, aiding and abetting organised crime.
The Mumbai police had arrested Kaskar after he was extradited from Dubai in 2003.
Two other accused Shakeel and Dawood are absconding in the case.
It was alleged that mobster Dawood allegedly owned Sara Sahara Mall, a shopping complex in south Mumbai's Crawford Market.
The land was reserved for a municipal school and the malls were constructed allegedly in connivance with MCGM officials.
The matter came to light four years ago after the police intercepted telephonic conversations purportedly between Kaskar and co-accused Sheikh and Radhanpura.
The case was filed in 2003 and was subsequently moved to the Supreme Court, which in July 2006 issued demolition order against the mall. But due to lack of adequate security the demolition order was deferred.