S Balakrishnan buys restaurant for Rs 4.28 crores.
By Sreekanth A Nair
Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s Mumbai restaurant was auctioned for Rupees 4.28 crores by a former journalist S Balakrishnan, who runs an NGO now.
The Delhi’s Zaika restaurant at Pakmodia Street in South Mumbai was auctioned by the Maharashtra government at hotel Diplomat in Kolaba, on Wednesday.
The restaurant was one of the seven properties of Ibrahim that was put for auction, which he left behind when he fled India years back.
These properties were put for auction 4 times earlier, but nobody dared to buy these properties fearing Ibrahim, who is a main accused in the 1993 Mumbai blast.
The base rate fixed by the government for the restaurant was Rs 1.18 crore.
This time, Balakrishnan was the only bidder and he had received threats from Ibrahim’s ally Chhota Shakeel.
“I got a message from Chhota Shakeel asking what you are up to. The intention behind the message was quite clear, but we decided to join the auction because if we don’t, then it is a shame for the country,” Balakrishnan told NDTV.
Balakrishnan won the bid for his NGO Desh Seva Samiti.
Earlier he had told to India Today, “I am bidding on behalf of my NGO Desh Seva Samiti which works for child welfare and women’s empowerment. We will run English speaking and computer training institute at the place. It will be named after great patriot Ashfaqullah Khan. He should be the role model for kids, not Dawood.”
Meanwhile, the right-wing organization Hindu Mahasabha won Ibrahim’s Hyundai accent car for 3.2 lakh, for which the base price fixed was Rs 15,700. Hindu Mahasabha president Swami Chakrapani said that they were going to set the car on fire.
1n 2000, Ajay Shrivastava, a lawyer from Delhi, had won a bid for an industrial unit owned by Dawood Ibrahim. But the property still belongs to Ibrahim as his sister Hasina Parkar challenged Shrivastava’s ownership in court.