Mumbai: A special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court recently directed the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to return a 48-year-old man Rs 9 lakh (in denomination of the old Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes) cash seized from his house while investigating the controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik.

This is because the agency could not prove there was prima facie evidence to show that the amount seized from Aamir Gazdar’s house was related to the now banned Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) or any of the entities linked with it. The amount was seized on November 19, 2016.

Special MCOCA judge V.V. Patil passed this order on an application moved by advocate Ishrat Ali Khan on behalf of Gazdar, who is into the business of marble contracting. Gazdar is one of Naik’s relatives and has a share in most of Naik’s entities.

The application was moved seeking back Rs 9 lakh cash seized by NIA during a raid in Gazdar’s residence. The raid was part of a series of raids that were conducted at offices and residences of people close to Dr Naik.

“Apart from cash the NIA had seized books, jewelleries, cash, laptop, pen-drives, memory cards, hard disc, passport, driving license, identity cards etc belonging to the family members of the applicant but we sought for return of cash amount, jewellery because all these things were arranged at home because his (Gazdar’s) daughter’s marriage was scheduled in December 2016,” said advocate Khan. He also said the court had already allowed return of jewellery worth around Rs 7 lakh and cash of Rs 80,000, which was in new Rs 2,000 currency notes because the receipt for those were produced before the court.