Author: Sandeep Unnithan
Publication: India Today
Date: June 6, 2011
URL: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/story/india-unable-pressurise-pakistan-to-deport-dawood-ibrahim/1/139519.html
Dawood Ibrahim figures at a lowly number 8
on the home ministry's now-withdrawn dossier of the 50 most wanted fugitives
from the law in India. Way below Lashkar-e-Toiba head Hafiz Mohammed Saeed
and even Major Sameer Ali of the ISI. He is wanted for "conspiracy to
cause bomb explosions in Mumbai in 1993 with intention to cause death".
Nearly 18 years after the 1993 serial bombings that killed over 250 people,
memories may be fading. The isi trained Dawood's gang members to wield arms
and plant explosives. It also shipped in nearly three tonnes of RDX, ak-47s
and grenades. Yet the bombings are still treated as a criminal case than an
ISI-backed terrorist plot like the 26/11 attacks. This has further weakened
India's case against Dawood. "Dawood does not get the kind of attention
that Hafiz Mohammed Saeed or Maulana Masood Azhar gets," says an Indian
intelligence official. That could be because the Dawood gang is still seen
as an underworld outfit and not a terrorist group like the Lashkar-e-Toiba
or the Jaish-e-Mohammed.
India does not have an extradition treaty
with Pakistan. The other more serious hurdle: Pakistan simply denies the gangster-terrorist
is in the country. Ahead of the 2002 Agra summit, President Pervez Musharraf
told the then home minister L.K. Advani: "Mr Advani, let me emphatically
tell you that Dawood Ibrahim is not in Pakistan." It is a story Pakistan
has steadfastly clung to even as India has continued to bomb the Pakistani
side with most-wanted lists every time the two sides meet.
India has been unable to apply sufficient
political pressure on Pakistan to deport Dawood. The closest it came to doing
this was between 2003 and 2004 when Advani took up Dawood's case with the
US. The US department of treasury designated him a 'Specially-Designated Global
Terrorist' under an executive order that would freeze assets belonging to
him within the US and prohibit transactions with US nationals. For a while,
it appeared as if Pakistan would finally concede to Dawood's presence, but
when political pressure from India slipped, it went back to denial mode. Since
then, Dawood has used his underworld network to facilitate terror operations
in India and expand his presence in the fake Indian currency business and
hawala transactions for terrorist outfits.
Experts say there is a case for Dawood to
be put in a special category of individuals threatening national security.
"The US went after Osama bin Laden not only because he masterminded the
9/11 attacks but also because he was a clear and present danger to them,"
says former director Intelligence Bureau, Ajit Doval.
With all other options to get Dawood fading,
legal experts say India needs to get the US to apply pressure on Pakistan
to deport him. "The US was the first to declare Dawood a global terrorist,
India should now ask the US to pressure Pakistan into not sheltering him,"
says Ujjwal Nikam, special public prosecutor in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case.
In 2006, 100 of the 129 accused in the Mumbai
bombings were found guilty and convicted by the special Terrorist and Disruptive
Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court. It is the longest running trial
in India's history. Indian investigators admit that there has been no investigation
that conclusively links Dawood to the 1993 blasts. The sole thread that connects
Dawood to the blasts is a confession made before the police by one of his
lieutenants who saw him, Tiger Memon and three unknown Pakistani nationals
hatch the blast conspiracy. "Even if we do bring Dawood back, can we
convict him in the 1993 blasts case? All we have is a single confession made
before the police which in inadmissible in court," says former CBI director
Joginder Singh
