New Delhi: According to a report in the Sunday Guardian, India’s most wanted terrorist, Dawood Ibrahim, was given a new identity in 2003 by the ISI. This was done to reduce the chances of detection and to enable him to travel to multiple countries across the globe.
In a report filed on July 26 (Sunday), the Sunday Guardian has quoted US experts in counter-terrorism activities as saying that just the way al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was before his assassination, Dawood is “hiding in plain sight” and in comfort, shuttling between homes in Peshawar, Hyderabad (Sindh) and Lahore.
The mafia don is in regular touch with family members in both Pakistan as well as India, the report added.
In a sensational claim, the sources have told the newspaper that Dawood Ibrahim, while travelling from the UAE in 2006 to South Africa, was sitting next to a senior politician and the duo were talking throughout the journey.
They claim that “up to 2008 (when the Mumbai attacks took place), at least two senior NDA leaders and four top UPA personalities were in direct and indirect contact” with India’s most wanted, but “after 26/11, all but one of the six stopped further contact”. The sixth leader “stopped contact with Dawood in 2011”.
The sources further claim that Dawood Ibrahim “was in March 2003 given a new identity and accompanying papers by the ISI, in order to reduce the chances of detection and to facilitate his travel to multiple locations across the globe, including South Africa, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Portugal and Dubai”.
He was given a new identity following confirmation that the US would declare Dawood a Specially Designated International Terrorist. The new identity enabled him to travel safely to multiple locations through use of the documents prepared for him by the ISI.
However, “the heat has increased after (Prime Minister) Modi took over in 2014”. During Narendra Modi’s visit to the US in September 2014, National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval stayed an extra two days in Washington “mainly to work out ways of capturing or otherwise incapacitating Dawood”. Doval had told his US interlocutors that he wanted to ensure success in hunting Dawood Ibrahim during his tenure in office as the NSA.
The mastermind of the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts “retains his contacts with Bollywood and is working to ensure through his contacts that favourites of his be given meaty roles”, the sources said.
However, he is “still very much in charge of the operations of the companies he owns”, as well as his traditional business of extracting money from businesspersons in India.
The sources claim that “a director-general of police and five inspectors-general of police and DIGs have worked for Dawood in the past”. However, they add that since the new government took office in 2014, conditions have become more difficult.
Bureau Report
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