The Government's long-standing efforts to offload the assets linked to one of India's most wanted fugitives, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, has been finally sold nearly four decades after being seized by the authorities.
The Union Government recently auctioned four plots associated with Dawood located in Mumbake village in Ratnagiri, the ancestral home of the Kaskar family.
Gangster Dawood emerged as India's most wanted men after the 1993 Mumbai bombings in which 257 people were killed and 700 were injured. He has also been accused of masterminding other terror attacks and also faces multiple charges of money laundering and extortion. India and the US have also accused him of financing terror groups, including Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The auction was held on March 5 in accordance with the provisions of the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act, which empowers authorities to seize and sell assets associated with economic offenders.
According to officials, the properties, some of which were previously registered in the name of Dawood's mother, Amina Bi, had remained unsold for years despite multiple attempts.
Earlier, authorities floated auctions in 2017, 2020, 2024, and 2025, however, due to the stigma attached to the underworld don, the bidders did not turn up and restrictions limiting land use to agriculture.
However, finally the bidders showed interest in the properties. The highest bid came for Survey Number 442 (Part 13-B), which fetched over Rs10 lakh, slightly above its reserve price of Rs 9.41 lakh.
The plot saw competition between two bidders, one based in Mumbai and the other from Ratnagiri, with the Mumbai bidder ultimately securing the deal.
The remaining three plots — Survey Numbers 533, 453, and 617 — were sold at their reserve prices of Rs 2.33 lakh, Rs 8.08 lakh, and Rs 15,440 respectively. Reports indicate that the same Mumbai-based bidder acquired these as well, facing no competition.
The successful sale shows a changing outlook toward such distressed assets, which were once seen as nearly impossible to sell. Authorities had even slashed reserve prices by around 30 percent last year to attract buyers, though those efforts did not yield results at the time.
The fresh development has also drawn attention to earlier high-profile efforts to acquire properties linked to Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar.
A Delhi-based lawyer Ajay Shrivastava had previously won bids for several such assets, including an industrial unit in Tardeo in 2001, although possession of the property remains entangled in legal disputes.
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In 2020, Shrivastava acquired an ancestral bungalow in Mumbake village for Rs 11.2 lakh. He later made aggressive bids on other parcels, including Rs 2.01 crore for a small plot with a reserve price of just Rs 15,440. However, some of these deals were eventually cancelled due to non-payment.
Shrivastava has said his objective is as much symbolic as it is commercial. He has proposed setting up a “Sanatan Dharma Pathshala” on the land, presenting it as an attempt to wipe out the lingering influence of the underworld and redefine the narrative surrounding these properties.
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