Dawood Ibrahim
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
Post 1993 Mumbai serial blasts
The Times of India, Jul 04 2015
Raj Shekhar
Govt blocked don's bid to come back, Chhota Shakeel reveals
Dawood Ibrahim and his deputy and most trusted aide Chhota Shakeel do not wish to return to India anymore. According to Shakeel, the Indian government turned down their proposal to return after the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, and now they are reluctant to come back. “When we wanted to come back after 1993, you people, your government didn't allow.Bhai had himself spoken that time to Ram Jethmalani, that too in London... baat ho gayi thi... But your ministry... that (LK) Advani played the game,“ Shakeel told TOI in an exclusive interview over phone from Karachi.
Shakeel opened up on a number of issues, including the bid he recently masterminded on rival Chhota Rajan which was exclusively reported by TOI on Wednesday , IPL match-fixing and his desire to continue doing “business“ in India.
He, however, got agitated when asked about information given by intelligence sources that Dawood was to be bumped off on September 16, 2014 when he was on his way to attend Shakeel's daughter Zoya's wedding in Karachi. Reliable accounts suggest that those interested in killing Dawood had come close to breaching the security cordon that the fugitive don has erected around himself.
This reporter had barely broached the issue that Shak eel snapped, “Who tells you all this? I have no idea. Ask what I will answer, not what I won't. These are fancies which will never turn true.(Sawal woh karo jiska jawab mai doon aapko, woh na karo jiska jawab nahin doon. Aaj tak jitni bhi aisi information aayi hai... agencies bhi jaanti hai, khayaali pulao hai, sapne dekhte hain, inka sap na kabhi poora nahi hoga).“
Shakeel accused Indian agencies of discriminating between gangs, and asked why they , or the government, had never talked about bringing back Chhota Rajan.“When agencies can hear me plotting against him (Rajan) and know where he is, why don't they get him picked up? Has he not killed people? Is he not a criminal?“ he asked.
He mocked Indian authorities for periodic declarations of their desire to bring Dawood and his aides back and make them face the law.“Every time a new government comes, they make the first statement about us. Usko leke aayenge... ghus ke laayenge... Kya halwa hai? Bakri ka bachcha samajh ke rakha hai kya? “ he said.
Shakeel confirmed that he had reached Newcastle in Australia to eliminate Rajan.“He ran away like a mouse,“ Shakeel said.
Rejection of the offer to surrender by Maharashtra government
The Times of India, Jul 04 2015
Chhota Shakeel and Dawood Ibrahim had offered to surrender in the late 90s to Indian authorities and face trial in the cases pending against him but the then Sharad Pawar government in Maharashtra had rejected it, renowned lawyer Ram Jethmalani said.
Shakeel had contacted him in London with the offer, provided he was assured that police would not torture the duo, Jethmalani said. “I don't know how he got to know that I was in London. But he contacted me and said he and Dawood were prepared to surrender to Indian authorities. He wanted an assurance from the government that they would be kept in house arrest during the trial,“ Jethmalani told TOI.
Dawood's business network
African blood diamonds
The Times of India, Aug 30 2015
Raj Shekhar
Dawood's latest business: Africa's blood diamonds
Investigators working to identify underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's offshore assets have stumbled on a startling fact: the fugitive is now in the business of conflict diamonds.
In a bid to freeze Dawood's assets and hobble his operations, national security adviser Ajit Doval had tasked intelligence agencies to pinpoint the don's businesses. It is widely known that he has interests in real estate, money laundering and illegal financial services like hawala, betting and fake currencies.
The sleuths have found that the current focus of the D Company , as Dawood's businesses are called, is to promote and expand the business of conflict diamonds in Africa and Dubai.
Conflict diamonds are raw diamonds mined and sold by militants groups in African countries, particu larly Angola, Sierra Leone and Congo, to “finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments“.These illegally mined stones are also called “blood diamonds“ for the millions of civilian deaths caused by arms and ammunition that their sales have procured.They have largely been blacklisted in the diamond markets across the world.
Dawood's numerous links to countries such as Zimbabwe and Kenya, among others, have been detailed in a dossier created by the inves tigators and which has been accessed by TOI. It also describes the manner in which the gangster's syndicate acquires diamonds abroad and smuggles them into Dubai.
Agencies are now probing the Indian links of the syndicate which they suspect get active once the rocks are processed and ready to be sold. India is a major processor of diamonds; almost 10 of every 11 diamonds that are sold across the globe are cut and polished in the country . The dossier talks about a con duit called Rehmat, who ap pears to be Dawood's pointsperson in Africa. Rehmat, who uses an African number, hires African nationals, mostly women and young men, to act as couriers for Dawood's diamonds. Rehmat is known to have tapped the existing couriers to identify those who could carry the diamonds to the don's henchmen in Dubai.
The investigators have established that Dawood has a Dubai-based company called Al Noor Diamonds which, they say , is a front for this illegal trade in blood diamonds. The probe has uncovered solid evidence to show how Rehmat ferries diamonds to Dubai from Africa on flights. “On each trip, diamonds worth around 5 to 10 lakh US dollars are smuggled into Dubai and the African courier is paid $10,000 as his courier fee,“ reads the dossier.
In Dubai, a man named in the re port as Feroze Oasis receives the stones and has them processed be fore putting them out on the mar ket. “Feroze also handles Dawood's other companies viz Oasis Oil and Lube LCC ,“ the dossier reads.
The investigators say Javed Chu tani alias Doctor is the man who oversees the don's operations and busi ness in Dubai. “He was a bookie by profession with interests in real estate.
His current gambling book is in the name of d Kamran. Chutani also works as a bridge between Feroze, another associate Tariq Du bai and Dawood,“ the dossier states.
The security set-up believes that once it has control over Dawood's off shore assets, it will be in a better po sition to take him on. But till date, on ly a half of his suspected assets has been identified. Work on determin ing the rest is currently under way .
India planned secret operation to kill Dawood
The Times of India, Aug 25 2015
In a significant disclosure, former Union home secretary R K Singh has said that Indian intelligence agencies had to abort a covert operation they had planned to take out fugitive underworld don and mastermind of Mumbai serial blasts Dawood Ibrahim. In an interview to a news channel, Singh said the plan, prepared by national security advisor A K Doval when he headed the Intelligence Bureau under the Vajpayee government, involved using members of the rival underworld gang led by Chhota Rajan to target Dawood when he was set to travel to Dubai for the wedding of his daughter in 2005. However, the plot was disrupted by a posse of Mumbai cops who mysteriously emerged in Delhi to arrest Rajan's accomplice Vicky Mal hotra and Fareed Tanasha.
Malhotra and Tanasha had travelled to Delhi to work out details of the plan.
The claim has shone fresh spotlight on Dawood's links with sections of Mumbai cops, one of the factors why he came to be known as the “uncrowned king“ of the city. It has rekindled suspicions about the manner in which Mumbai cops landed in New Delhi to enlist the help of Delhi Police ostensibly to execute arrest warrants pending against members of Chhota Rajan gang.
The claim is significant also because of the timing: it comes at a time when evidence has emerged that Doval's interest in the leader of the notorious crime syndicate may not have waned even after a decade he spent outside the government follow ing his superannuation.
Last week, Indian agencies responded to claims of Pakistani officials here that they had got dossiers showing complicity of Indian agencies in Baluchistan insurgency by releasing a fresh photograph of the ageing don. So far, Indian agencies have used an old photograph -one which was taken in 1993 -in all the dossiers submitted to Pakistan to claim that the fugitive was being sheltered by the hostile neighbour, and to demand his return. The image of the ageing don with a receding hairline showed that Indian agencies have been tracking him with considerable success.
The dossier which Doval had planned to submit to his Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz had the latter not cried off from his engagement in Delhi, included the will that Dawood has prepared, bequeathing his property to his wife Mehzabeen, as well as the precise coordinates of the house Dawood bought next to a hospital in Karachi.
Dawood's infiltration of Mumbai Police has been part of the lore that has developed around him. A few years ago, Wikileaks disclosed that an inspector with Mumbai Police had to be cashiered because of his links with the don.
2005: Scuttling a plan to get him
The Times of India, Aug 26 2015
Prafulla Marpakwar
Who scuttled 2005 op to `nab' Dawood? Maha orders probe
Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis ordered a probe into the sensational disclosures made by BJP LS member and former Union home secretary R K Singh on the Mumbai police's dubious role in scuttling a covert operation to take down Dawood Ibrahim.
In a TV interview, Singh had alleged that then IB director Ajit Doval, now national security advisor, had drafted a plan to target Dawood in 2005.It was proposed to involve members of a gang led by Dawood's rival, Chhota Rajan.
The plan failed to take off as a police team mysteriously reached New Delhi to detain Rajan's associates, Vicky Malhotra, and Fareed Tanasha, who were in the national capital to take a briefing on implementing the plan. The idea was to target Dawood when he'd travel to Dubai for his daughter's wedding.
