n a stunning development, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is learnt to have taken don Dawood Ibrahim into custody, along with his trusted lieutenant Chhota Shakeel and the mastermind of the 1993 Mumbai blasts Tiger Memon.
Intelligence sources said the trio was rounded up last Thursday from their hideout near the Pak-Afghan border and taken to a safe-house on the outskirts of Quetta. The sources added that the three outlaws are likely to be moved out of Quetta soon.
With the US mounting pressure on Islamabad to hand over Dawood and his accomplices who are close to Al-Qaida, the ISI is said to have acted to pre-empt possible proactive steps by Washington. Only last week, the US said that Dawood's smuggling routes converge with that used by Qaida to move arms.
As Washington was building up to some action against Dawood, the ISI is said to have cracked down on him in order to save further embarrassment to the beleaguered Pervez Musharraf regime should Dawood get caught by American forces.
The sources said it would have been tactically unwise for ISI to pick up just Dawood and not his trusted henchmen, Shakeel and Memon.
A senior intelligence officer added: "We will not be surprised if the ISI even eliminates them and confiscates their vast wealth. In any case, Dawood and the others have ceased to be of much use to the Pakistani establishment."
Dawood's brother Anees is already on the run. The first indications of the detention of Dawood and his cronies came when people working for them in Mumbai, Dubai and other places found their phones being answered by strange voices.
The men at the other end of the phones asked the callers to leave their names with the promise to pass on the message to the bhais . This has apparently never happened.
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