The Mhow Cantonment Board in Madhya Pradesh has issued a final demolition notice to the family of Al Falah University chairman Mohammad Jawad Ahmed Siddiqui, citing alleged illegal construction at their ancestral home in Mhow that they had left in the early 2000s.
The four-storey structure, known locally as “Maulana’s Building”, belonged to the late Mohammad Hammad Siddiqui, Jawad’s father. Built in the 1990s, it has more than 25 windows and a large basement, and remains one of the most prominent landmarks in the Kayastha neighbourhood.
Cantonment engineer Harishankar Kaloya confirmed that the final notice was issued to the owner or occupant. Kaloya explained that the building remains in the late Hammad Siddiqui’s name. “As per cantonment laws, renovation or repair permission can only be granted to the registered titleholder,” he said, adding, “Since the ownership was never transferred, the entire structure is deemed unauthorised.”\
The board’s action coincides with renewed scrutiny of the Siddiqui family amid a multi-state fraud probe, which was refreshed after at least two doctors employed by Al Falah Medical College in Haryana’s Faridabad were allegedly linked to a terror module that is suspected to be behind the November 10 blast near the Red Fort in Delhi.
Earlier this week, police arrested Jawad’s younger brother, Hamud Ahmed Siddiqui, from Hyderabad. Now 50 years old, he had been wanted in multiple investment fraud cases registered in Mhow in 2000.
According to police, Hamud allegedly defrauded several investors, many of them retired Army and Military Engineer Services personnel, through bogus investment firms promising high returns, then fled with the money.
Police said Hamud had been living under a new identity in Hyderabad, running a stock market investment firm in Gachibowli. He went to great lengths to conceal his identity, even arranging to have household gas cylinders delivered to a separate address, police alleged.
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com.
