NIA to court: Salim Fruit was completing task left by Parkar

However, Qureshi’s lawyer said that the allegation was against his client’s personal character and that he had nothing to do with Parkar.

Following this, Special Judge B D Shelke sent Qureshi to further custody of the NIA till August 24. The NIA had sought Qureshi’s custody for another 10 days.

Qureshi was arrested on August 4 by the NIA, which had claimed that he had “indulged in unauthorised acquisition of assets” by giving threats in the name of Ibrahim, his close associate Chhota Shakeel and their gang, D company.

“The accused (Qureshi) has traveled to Pakistan and some places, including UAE, on many occasions. He has met Chhota Shakeel and carried out activities for D company. He was using their names and threatening people. He was completing the task left behind by Haseena Parkar. After her passing, the same modus operandi has been used to usurp properties and huge sums of money have been sent to Chhota Shakeel,” Senior Public Prosecutor for the NIA, Sundeep Sadawarte, said.

He added that Qureshi has to be confronted with more than 1,000 pages of documents. The NIA also claimed that Qureshi was involved in smuggling of gold and valuables and cigarettes worth lakhs of rupees had been also seized from him.

The prosecutor informed the court that statements of eight witnesses have been recorded. He added that statements of 19 people are yet to be recorded and that witnesses were scared to come before the agency. The NIA further said that call data records of over 300 mobile phone numbers have to be analysed.

Lawyer Viquar Rajguru, representing Qureshi, stated that while NIA has claimed that there were thousands of documents, still not a single property has been identified.

“There is not a single case against me by the customs department or of extortion. How can this facade be created that I am supporting the D company? How can I staying in a small flat support the whole D company?” he said on behalf of Qureshi.

Calling it a “fishing inquiry”, Rajguru said that while NIA has claimed that there were over 20 cases against Parkar, “there were not more than two cases and none of them have reached the trial stage”.