Week after acquittal, Iqbal Kaskar applies for bail in PMLA case

MUMBAI: A week after the special MCOCA court in Thane acquitted Iqbal Ibrahim Kaskar in an extortion case, the younger brother of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar filed a bail application in the sessions court for the third case registered against him on Friday.

Iqbal Kaskar faces three extortion-related cases. In the current case, Kaskar and his aides are accused of extorting money from a builder. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered a money laundering case against Kaskar and arrested him in February 2022.

“We have applied for bail on the grounds of delay in trial,” said Kaskar’s advocate, Tabish Mooman. He added, “In the main case, all the witnesses have deposed in his favour. They have not linked either the flat nor the money in his name.”

According to Mooman, Kaskar and his aides were charged with extorting around ₹90 lakh and a flat from Thane-based real estate developer Suresh Devichand Mehta. Kaskar allegedly threatened the builder using Dawood’s name and took the flat in the name of Mumtaz Shaikh, a close associate of Iqbal.

The bail application was filed before the special MCOCA sessions court of BD Shelke. Last week, special court judge Amit M. Shete acquitted Kaskar after the witnesses, including the complainant, turned hostile. Kaskar was booked by the Thane police in three different cases. The ED registered a case based on a Thane police FIR in 2017. The bail application pertains to the third case.

In the acquitted case, Kaskar was booked for threatening and extorting money from builder Radheshyam Agarwal. However, during the trial, all the witnesses turned hostile. The court observed that there was no material on record showing the gangsters had acquired the property. The court noted that the prosecution failed to prove the charges against Kaskar, highlighting loopholes in the police investigation and their narrative.