Fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s sister Haseena Parkar avoided imminent arrest after a metropolitan court here granted her bail on Thursday in a cheating and extorition case on a persona bond of Rs 25,000. However, she has been barred from leaving Mumbai, and must report the investigating officer.
Haseena, who lives in Mumbai, had been untraceable for almost two weeks after the court had issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against her on May 10, after she had failed to appear before the court in the case. A construction firm Ravi Group has complained that she and her associates cheated it for Rs 30 lakh and threatened the owner with dire consequences.
 After giving a slip to Mumbai police, which earned them huge  flak from public and media, Haseena made a dramatic appearance in a sessions court on Tuesday and again reappeared there on Wednesday. The sessions court, however, directed her to approach the metropolitan court, which had issued the arrest warrant, to seek bail and cancel the warrant.
Accordingly, Haseena appeared before the metropolitan court at Esplanade. Her lawyers argued that not a single criminal case has been registered against Haseena and she was unreasonably being framed by the complainant.
The lawyers argued that Haseena was ready to cooperate with the police and there was absolutely no need to arrest her.
The complainant Jayesh Shah of Ravi Builders, whose case was  represented by the state prosecution, argued that he had advanced Rs 1 crore to Haseena’s associates Shukla brothers with her active mediation. However, they refused to pay the balance Rs 30 lakh and Haseena reportedly told the complainant to “forget it” or else face “dire consequences”.
The meeting for advancing money to Shukla brothers had taken place at Haseena’s apartment, the prosecution told the court.
Besides Shukla brothers, other accused in the case are their agent Chandresh Shah, Haseena's driver Salim Ahmed Sayyed, Haseena’s bodyguard Mohammed Shamim Khan and builders Arshad Shafi Shaikh and Maqsud Fakir Mohammed Ansari. The magistrate, however, ruled that prima facie a case of extortion or forgery could not be made against Haseena, and there was “insufficient evidence” against her.
While granting her bail, the court directed Haseena to cooperate with the investigation and report regularly to the Anti-Extortion Cell of the Mumbai police.
She was also told not to tamper with evidence in the case or leave the city without the permission of the concerned investigating officer.
The court observed that the money retained by the Shukla brothers, also accused in the case, after the realty deal with the complainant fell through, had been kept in their bank account and there was no evidence that the money had reached Haseena. The FIR in the case also did not mention that Haseena had extorted money  from the builder.