Haseena Parkar, younger sister of Pakistan-based underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, died of a massive heart attack at Habib Hospital at Dongri in south Mumbai, on Sunday afternoon.
Haseena (55), who used to live at Gorden Hall building in downtown Nagpada, was rushed to the nearby Habib Hospital at around 2.30 pm after she complained of severe chest pain. She breathed her last less than an hour after admission to the hospital. Used to be known as Haseena Aapa in the underworld circles, she is survived by two daughters. Her son Danish Parkar had died in a road accident in 2006.
Daughter of a police constable Ibrahim Kaskar from the coastal Konkan region, she was one among the 12 Kaskar children. Her brothers were Shabbir Kaskar, Dawood Ibrahim, Noora Kaskar, Anees Ibrahim, Iqbal Kaskar, Mustaquim and Humayun, while Saeeda, Zaitun, Mumtaz and Farzana were her sisters.
Apart from being the sister of Dawood, she was the widow of underworld gangster-cum-extortionist Mohammad Ibrahim Parkar, who was bumped off by the rival Arun Gawli gang members in 1992.
Dawood, who had fled the country in late 80s, did not take kindly to his brother-in-law Parkar’s murder. Before long, the then Dubai-based Dawood hit back at the Gawli gang by eliminating the rival group’s sharpshooter Shailesh Haldankar in the JJ hospital shootout, considered one of the landmark incidents in Mumbai’s underworld history.
Despite being the younger sister of underworld don Dawood, Haseena had not had not hit headlines till early 2007. Though she had managed to evade arrest in late 90s for allegedly submitting false documents to seek passports to her children, she came to be booked in a cheating-cum-extortion case in April 2007. The city police booked Haseena in a cheating-cum-extortion case, after a city builder lodged a complaint against her, alleging that she had not only failed to return Rs 30 lakh taken from him but had also threatened him with dire consequences.
Despite being very much in the metropolis and well within the know and bounds of a section of the D-company-friendly policemen, Haseena had at that time sent city police teams scurrying in her search to different States. She had managed to evade arrest. later in May 2007, a city magistrate granted her bail, after the police failed to make out a cheating-cum-extortion case against her.
She may have been small fry in comparison with Dawood, her eldest brother Shabbir, who was killed in the early 80s allegedly by members of the Pathan gang, her lesser-known late husband Mohammed Ibrhaim Parkar, her incarcerated brother Iqbal Hassan Kaskar or even her other two brothers-in-law Noora (who was reportedly abducted and shot dead in Pakistan in late March 2009) and Anees, but Haseena could not claim herself to be above board, her claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
Though there were no cases of intimidation against her, she was held in awe by fellow residents of Nagpada and Dongri, where her elder brother Dawood began his career in smuggling with the Karim lala gang and where D-company continues to enjoy considerable clout.
