Dawood Ibrahim

Mumbai, April 25: Mumbai police today launched a search for Dawood Ibrahim’s sister Hasina Parkar after they failed to find her during raids on her Nagpada flat and a Mira Road address.

The crime branch lodged an FIR against Hasina on Monday for extortion and cheating, based on a complaint filed by developer Vinod Avalani. The action also followed allegations in the Assembly that she “controlled” the police wing.

A team headed to Nashik after a tip-off that Hasina had left Mumbai. However, sources close to her family said Hasina Apa, as she is called by Dawood’s henchmen, wasn’t absconding, but busy with the first death anniversary of her son Danish Khan, who died in a car crash on the Mumbai-Goa highway in April last year.

Senior police officials wouldn’t say if Hasina would be arrested under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). Asked if she would, indeed, be held, police commissioner D.N. Jadhav said: “We will proceed according to our investigation and the evidence we collect.”

Joint commissioner (crime) Meera Borwankar didn’t say if Hasina was absconding. “We don’t want to act hastily. We believe in quality investigations and let me assure you that Mumbai police’s crime branch is extremely professional. We will investigate the case in detail.”

Asked why the police were reluctant to deal with the elusive don’s sister in the same manner as Chhota Rajan’s wife, Jadhav said: “Everyone will be treated equally. There is no question of different treatment for anybody.”

Rajan’s wife Sujata Nikalje is under arrest on extortion charges under the organised crime act. She is also accused of running her husband’s gang after he fled the country.

Avalani, the developer whose complaint has sparked the police hunt, claims he paid two builders, Krishna Milan Shukla and Sandeep Shukla, Rs 30 lakh at Hasina’s home last October to redevelop a slum colony in Wadala.

The Shuklas, however, say the joint venture was for Rs 1 crore, of which Rs 70 lakh was to be paid once work on the project began.

The builders, arrested last evening on cheating and forgery charges after their anticipatory bail plea was rejected, said Avalani asked them to accept only Rs 20 lakh (of the remaining Rs 70 lakh) and sign papers for the deal.

In their bail petitions, the Shuklas claimed two police inspectors asked them in February-March this year to finalise the agreement or return Rs 30 lakh, with interest. They allegedly demanded a “settlement fee” of Rs 10 lakh.

On March 28, the Shuklas lodged a complaint against the two officials, Avalani and others with the anti-corruption bureau. The bureau arrested Chandresh Shah, a middleman who had introduced the Shuklas to Avalani.

Avalani, in turn, filed a complaint on April 11, accusing the Shuklas of cheating and criminal intimidation. He said the builders didn’t return the money or execute the deal.