The noose tightens around Dawood

NEW DELHI: Time seems to be running out for Pakistan in its fight against terror. Islamabad, which has all along denied the presence of India’s most wanted fugitive Dawood Ibrahim on its soil, has now been asked by US investigative agencies to cooperate with them to hunt him down.

America’s FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) are on the lookout for Dawood for his alleged links with Al-Qaeda affiliates and involvement in the global heroin trade.

This vindicates India’s consistent stand that Pakistan has been harbouring 1993 Mumbai serial blasts’ main accused. A special notice circulated among the member countries of the United Nations, which has proscribed Dawood as a global terrorist, mentions Pakistan as the base of his operations. The Interpol notice against the fugitive lists two of his known addresses and likely hideouts in Pakistan: NU 37, 30th Street, Defence Housing Authority, and White House, near Saudi Mosque, Clifton Road, both in Karachi.

Pakistan, however, has flatly denied the presence of Dawood at either of these addresses or elsewhere on its territory. That this counter-claim has not cut ice with the US is apparent as FBI is said to have shown Islamabad the proof of UN special notice featuring Karachi as one of Dawood’s bases.

According to reports, FBI and DEA authorities have described Dawood Ibrahim as “an Al-Qaeda facilitator now living in Pakistan, who has already been placed in the same category as top Al-Qaeda operatives with Interpol issuing a special notice against him”. In their communications with the Pakistani authorities, DEA has claimed that D-company was involved in large-scale shipment of narcotics into the UK and Western Europe and that its smuggling routes from South Asia, West Asia and Africa have shared links with Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda terror network.

The US agencies had sought help from Pakistan’s ISI, Federal Investigation Agency, Anti-narcotics Force and the interior ministry. However, only the interior ministry responded to the US request, saying any such help was not possible since no such person by the name of Dawood Ibrahim lived on Pakistani soil.

According to the Interpol special notice against Dawood, the don has 16 aliases and 11 passports issued from India, Pakistan, the UAE and Yemen. His operations span across Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman. New Delhi is clear that the first claim on Dawood is India’s, since he is an Indian citizen and all the leg-work and initial investigations against him were carried out by Indian agencies.

India, however, is not averse to working jointly with the US agencies to track Dawood down.