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Where is Dawood? Plot thickens

Where is Dawood? Plot thickens

Author: PNS/Agencies
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: August 8, 2007

News about elusive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's appearance are as regular as UFO sighting. Two days after reports that having undergone plastic surgery to camouflage his identity Dawood was hiding in Kazakhstan, yet another titillating tale has surfaced in the media.

This time, it is about the arrest of Dawood along with his trusted lieutenants Chhota Shakeel and Tiger Memon, all wanted in India in connection with the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts and several other charges. A section of the media reported that Dawood and his henchmen were picked up from their hideout near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and taken to a safe-house on the outskirts of the Quetta city, capital of Baluchistan province.

While the Pakistani media is silent about the news and major TV channels have ignored it altogether, the Indian media has gone overboard in claiming and refuting the news. The matter took an interesting turn after someone claiming to be Chhota Shakeel called the Indian TV channels and asserted that there had been no crackdown on 'D' company and Dawood was still at large.

The Pakistan Government also officially debunked the news of Dawood's arrest.

"Nobody with that name has been arrested in Pakistan," Ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema told mediapersons in Islamabad.

"We have reason to believe that he is not in Pakistan," he said, adding that Indian authorities were advised to scour their own territory for the wanted men.

Last week, the US - which branded Ibrahim a 'global terrorist' - said his smuggling routes converge with those used by Al-Qaeda to traffic arms.

The rumour mill was busy all through the day but security agencies in both India and across the border expressed surprise over the claims.

Some television channels claimed that Dawood had been wounded in a shootout in Karachi while others reported that the underworld don had been detained in Quetta along with his aides Memon and Shakeel.

No security official or hospital in Karachi had any inkling of any shootout involving Dawood.

"Is he in Karachi," asked a top security official in Karachi, who dismissed the reports as "rumours".

Another official in Karachi pointed out that with President Pervez Musharraf being in town, it was hard to believe that a shootout had taken place at a four-Star hotel in the port city's busiest areas.

Pakistan's former Test cricket captain Javed Miandad, whose son is married to Dawood's daughter, refused to comment on the reports.

India has been claiming that Pakistan's ISI has provided shelter to the don, a contention vehemently denied by Islamabad.

Indian security agencies said they were verifying the reports regarding Dawood and there was no credible information with them to suggest that he has been taken into custody.

The US has already asked Pakistan to hand over Dawood and his aides for their alleged links to Al Qaeda.


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