After winning bidding for two of the four ancestral estates owned by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, Delhi-based lawyer Ajay Shrivastava said that he will open a school there.
Two plots of land belonging to the family of Dawood Ibrahim were purchased by Ajay Shrivastava on Friday for more than Rs 2 crore at an auction in Mumbai.
Under the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act, four properties in Ibrahim's ancestral Mumbake hamlet in Khed tehsil, Ratnagiri district, Maharashtra, were up for sale. The properties were handled by the appropriate authorities.
This is not the first time Srivastava has purchased real estate owned by Dawood Ibrahim. He paid Rs 11.2 lakh in 2020 for the ancestral house of Dawood in Khed. Srivastava disclosed the rationale behind his striking acquisitions, saying, "I have set up a Sanatan Dharma Pathshala trust and want to start a hostel for the students of the Sanatan school. I had also bought the adjoining land from the open market in 2017-18," he told TOI.
Remarkably, there were no bids on two properties, although there were three and four bids on the other two.
The land measuring 170.98 square metres (survey no. 617, Hissa No. 13-B) with a reserve price of Rs 15,440 was the subject of the highest bid, totaling Rs 2.01 crore. A further plot measuring 1730 square metres, survey no. 842 (Hissa no. 13-B), brought an offer of Rs 3.28 lakh, whereas the reserve price was Rs 1,56,270.
The Income Tax department's offices are located in south Mumbai at Aayakar Bhavan, where the auction was placed.
Ajay Shrivastava purchased both pieces of land. In a prior auction, Shrivastava had bought another piece of land from the gangster's family.
He expressed that he intended to turn the recently purchased properties into a Sanatana Dharma School. Shrivastava is a Shiv Sena leader, according to ANI.
He said, “I have purchased the two plots, and I brought the land parcels at such whopping prices as I believe in astrology, and the plots survey number matched with my birth date. Also, I own an adjacent plot purchased in the last auction. I want to develop Sanatan Dharma School at the said plots. I didn’t bid for the other two plots as they don’t have proper roads to reach them.”
Shrivastava also said that he wanted the general public to understand that Dawood's influence has faded. Anyone who works against the interests of the nation will suffer the repercussions, which include having their possessions seized and sold—properties that people are eager to purchase. The attorney also recounted how, in 2001, he purchased the gangster's industrial unit in Tardeo, albeit he hasn't yet received physical ownership of the land.
“In 2001, the auction was conducted by the Income Tax Department, but the problem with the department was that they did not offer the possession of the property and I am still fighting for that in the court. The case is pending in high court. In 2020, I took Ibrahim's bungalow situated in Ratnagiri in the auction and there I founded Sanatan Pathshala in the line of madrassas. Under the trust, I have built an educational institute there and its construction will start soon,” Shrivastava told news agency ANI.
