Author: S. Balakrishnan
Publication: The Times of India
Date: October 9, 2001
Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Chhota
Shakeel and a few of their senior associates have been virtually placed
under house arrest at Nawanez near Karachi. Their movements have been vastly
restricted by the Pakistan authorities.
This development is a sequel to
the National Democratic Front government's constant pressure on the U.S.
administration. Union home minister L. K. Advani, in particular, has been
pressing for the early extradition of Dawood and his close aides. Sources
here pooh-poohed reports in a section of the press on Monday which claimed
that Chhota Shakeel had been arrested in Chennai.
A U.S. official here had dropped
sufficient indications last week that some action was being planned against
Dawood and his cohorts. It was learnt that considerable intelligence was
exchanged between the U.S and India in this regard. It is not clear what
the Pakistani authorities plan to do with the Dawood and his associates
next. Right now, the ruling establishment in Pakistan is mired in a crisis
following the removal of the ISI chief Mahmoud Ahmad and changes in the
army.
The Indian government had informed
officials of the Bush administration that, apart from putting pressure
on Islamabad to turn off its support to the Jaish-e-Mohammed and other
terrorist outfits, Washington should also get the Pervez Musharraf regime
to extradite Dawood and Co. to India.
"U.S. claims of combating global
terrorism would sound hollow to the people of Mumbai in particular so long
as those responsible for the serial bomb blasts in March 1993 in the metropolis
are provided a safe haven in Pakistan" a source in the Central Bureau of
Investigation observed.
Meanwhile, the Mumbai police have
detained about eight persons belonging to the Chhota Shakeel faction of
the Dawood gang. They were apparently plotting to eliminate a senior politician
with a view to create mayhem in Mumbai. Some of them were also believed
to have links with the Kashmiri terrorist outfit, Harkat-ul-Ansar.
