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Sena disowns activist's challenge to Dawood

The Delhi-based Shiv Sena member, who bought one of the seized properties of Karachi-based gangster Dawood Ibrahim in Bombay for a song on Wednesday, said his idea was only to take the fear out of people's minds. His own party, however, has dissociated itself from the move.

"I felt insulted that in this country of over a billion people, no one is courageous enough to come forward and buy the property," Ajay Kumar Shrivastava, 37, head of the Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, student wing of the Shiv Sena, told the Press Trust of India.

Shrivastava said he had bought the 80 square yard industrial shed at Tardeo, central Bombay, at an auction by the income-tax department at Hotel Diplomat in Bombay. He was the only bidder there.

But he is yet to see the property with a market value of over Rs 10 million, which he bought for the reserve price of Rs 250,000. "My idea of going all the way was to take the fear out of people's minds," he said.

He said the Bombay police had assured him security when he goes to take possession of the property "later this year".

Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena's Delhi unit president, Jai Bhagwan Goyal, described Shrivastava's action as a "cheap publicity stunt" and said the party had nothing to do with.

"We don't have to send a Sainik all the way from Delhi to buy that plot. If party supremo Bal Thackeray wanted, he could have got it done there," he claimed.

PTI

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