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Anupam Dasgupta
Anupam Dasgupta

DON

UNSC move on Dawood a shot in the arm for India

dawood-ibrahim-file Dawood Ibrahim

The recent amendment and assertion of don-turned-global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim's physical addresses by the UN Security Council special committee on ISIL and Al Qaeda is a shot in the arm for the Indian security establishment.

The nailing and underscoring of the Karachi addresses of Dawood, who has been accused of funding Al Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, by the Security Council's ISIL (Da'esh) and Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee is set to galvanise the Indian security set-up and goad the Union government into piling fresh pressure on Pakistan to admit to what they had been hiding or blatantly denying all this while.

Getting Dawood back has always figured high on the agenda of the Narendra Modi government and the PM's National Security Adviser Ajit Doval. Doval would now work overtime to turn the UN vindication into India's advantage. The NSA is often credited with harnessing Dawood's close aide-turned-bete noire Chhota Rajan's criminal network (Rajan is now in Indian custody after being arrested and flown back to India from Bali last year) to get at Dawood.

India, on several occasions, had put before Pakistan near-precise “physical co-ordinates” of Dawood in Pakistan only to be diplomatically snubbed by its neighbour who continued to maintain that he was not in the country. However, Pakistan's denial is not viewed as authentic by India or the global conflux of nations fighting terrorism and related security scourges, especially after Pakistan hid for a considerable period of time the presence and hold-out of slain Al Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden inside the garrison town of Abbottabad on the immediate periphery of Islamabad till a bevy of American Navy Seals got the better of him.

Now, Pakistan's lie has once again been exposed, with the Security Council amendment delineating Dawood's presence in Karachi. The physical addresses that are mentioned in the Sanctions List include White House, Near Saudi Mosque, Clifton/ House Number 37-30th Street, Defence Housing Authority, Karachi and a palatial bungalow in the hilly area of Noorabad, says a UN press release dated August 22, 2016.

Besides, the document lists a slew of passports that Dawood had been using all along. A few of these passports, including A 501801, P 537849 and K 560098, were issued in Mumbai while A 717288 and F 823692 were issued in Dubai and Jeddah respectively. Three other passports G866537, C 267185 and H 123259 were issued from Karachi and Rawalpindi.

Dawood, who is believed to be carefully shielded and cushioned by the ISI—Pakistan's military spy agency—over the past many years, has also been donning a number of aliases like Bada Seth, Bada Bhai, Iqbal Bhai, Haji Sahab, Aziz Dilip, Dawood Sabri and Dawood Hassan Shaikh Ibrahim as and when he travelled out of Pakistan or had to be “shifted out” for compelling reasons.

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