NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik has been arrested in the money laundering case related to Dawood Ibrahim.
Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik has been sent to Enforcement Directorate custody till Monday. Malik, who is a senior leader of the Nationalist Congress Party in power in the state (along with Congress and Shiv Sena), was arrested last week in a money laundering case involving wanted gangster Dawood Ibrahim.
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday allowed the hearing of Malik's plea seeking his arrest and challenging the remand order issued by the special court.
In his plea, Malik claimed that his detention and imprisonment was wholly illegal and therefore the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR, equivalent to an FIR) should be quashed and released immediately.
The petition claimed that he was summoned on February 23, and his arrest by the ED on the same day was out of political vendetta as he was vocal and critical of the central government's misuse of central agencies.
"The petitioner states that he is not the first person to be targeted and this is a worrying trend across the country where central agencies are being misused by the party in power," the plea said.
Malik, 62, has been a harsh critic of the BJP over the past few months with daily attacks on the Narcotics Control Bureau as it handled the high-profile Aryan Khan case, and alleging that the opposition party was using central agencies for intimidation. was doing for Your rivals are grabbing headlines.
ED officials came to Malik's residence on the morning of February 23, news agency PTI reported. He was questioned at home before being taken to the ED office, where he was questioned for seven hours, news agency PTI reported.
A defiant Malik, as he was carried, said: "Jhunge nahi, darrenge nahi, karnekaab (we will not bow down, will not fear, will expose (lie))."