The Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust (SBUT) has bid and won Masulla building in Dongri area of Mumbai.

The property belonged to fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. The auction, carried out over five hours, was conducted under the Smuggling and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act (Safema).

The winning bid for the building was Rs 3.5 crore. SBUT is leading the Bhendi Bazaar cluster redevelopment project in South Mumbai.

"SBUT were the highest bidders. In their e-tender they had quoted a sum of Rs 3.51 crore," additional commissioner Safema, RN D'Souza said.

Masulla building, also known as Amina Mansion after Dawood's mother, is in a dilapidated condition. After winning the auction, SBUT issued a statement saying, "The Masulla building has been declared unfit for living and poses serious risk to the lives of tenants and pedestrians. Therefore, we participated in the auction and acquired the building to redevelop it as a part of our ongoing Bhendi Bazaar redevelopment project."

Supreme Court advocate Bhupendra Kumar Bhardwaj and the Hindu Mahasabha were the other bidders for Dawood Ibrahim's property but lost out for the second year in a row to SBUT. Last year three properties of India's most wanted were put up for auction and SBUT successfully bid for all of them.

Thursday's auction was to begin at 10 am. However, owing to Maratha quota stir Safema authorities had asked all the bidders to come by 9 am. There were about 40 people who had reached the venue.

Safema auctioned nine properties in total. These included buildings in Valsad, Daman and Surat among others. Out of this only one property of Dongri belonged to Dawood. In total Safema collected over Rs 5 crore from the auction.

Naresh Chandel, a resident of Daman, managed to buy his own house that he has been living in for Rs 9 lakh. Another property in Valsad was bought for over Rs 1 crore by a bidder from the region.

According to Safema authorities, there are more properties of Dawood's that have been seized. "Right now evaluation of their prices is going on, which is taking time. As soon as the process gets over, they will be put for auctioning," said D'Souza.Also read: SBUT, SC lawyer and Hindu Mahasabha to bid for Dawood's Masulla Building