Author: Pramod Kumar Singh/ New
Delhi
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: October 28, 2003
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
claims nobody called Dawood Ibrahim lives in Karachi's Clifton area. He
is right, for Dawood has shifted home recently under State protection after
being named by the US Treasury Department as a "Specially Designated Global
Terrorist". His new address is: House 37, Street 13, Phase-V, Defence Housing
Authority, Karachi.
With this update, Indian Intelligence
agencies have called Pakistan's bluff after its blatant denial that it
has not sheltered Dawood Ibrahim.
The agencies have also made startling
disclosures about the high profile lifestyle of Dawood and his major-domos
Chhota Shakeel and Tiger Memon in Karachi, who they alleged were continuing
to indulge in anti-India activities at the behest of Pakistan's notorious
Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
Dawood's new house, in fact a mansion,
facing the Arabian Sea, has been provided stiff security by the Karachi
Police. All roads leading to his mansion have been heavily barricaded.
Even those who live in his neighbourhood are not allowed to enter the Defence
Housing area without being frisked. Apart from the heavily-armed guards
for ground security cover, snipers have also been deployed on the roof
top of Dawood's house.
The ISI has even posted securitymen
in the guise of vendors near his house. Their brief is to alert the security
and the fugitive mafia don, the moment they notice anything amiss, according
to the Intelligence sources.
The security measures were put in
place by the Pakistani authorities after Dawood nearly escaped a bid on
his life during his recent visit to the Kawish Crown Shopping Plaza in
Karachi. The Kawish Crown Plaza is one of the business fronts of Dawood's
vast underground empire in Karachi.
Before the denial by President Musharraf
had come, security advisor to the Sindh Home Department Aftab Sheikh and
the Inspector-General of Police, Karachi, had acknowledged Dawood's presence
in the city. Mr Sheikh had gone on record accepting that the Kawish Crown
Plaza, situated at Karachi's Sarah-e-Faisal street, where the bomb blast
had taken place, belonged to Dawood.
The sources said Dawood's movements
are now being monitored by Pakistani security after the Foreign Assets
Control wing of the US Treasury Department named him. He is not allowed
to even venture out of his house without getting an all- clear from the
ISI bigwigs, the sources said.
Dawood's younger brother Mushtaqueem,too,
has been provided with a home at House no-10, Near Hilltop, Defence Housing
Authority.
Earlier, the underworld king used
to reside in his palatial 6,000 sq ft house that had a swimming pool and
tennis courts in the posh Clifton area of the southern metropolis.
The Indian agencies have pinpointed
the residences and the activities of Dawood and his underworld cohorts.
The new disclosure contradicts the official denial by President Pervez
Musharraf that there is nobody by that name in Pakistan. Not only Dawood,
but his close associates Chhota Shakeel, Tiger Memon and a host of others
besides his family, also live in Karachi under official protection, the
sources said. Their houses are guarded by Karachi policemen in `civvies'.
During the Agra Summit, widely-circulated
Pakistani news magazine Newsline had even described him as "agent of crime".
Tiger Memon lives in House no. C-201,
Karachi Development Scheme, Extension-A. The main perpetrator of the 1993
serial blasts in Mumbai owns a multi-storeyed building capped with a glittering
glass crown called "Kashif Crown" in Karachi's main Sharah-e-Faisal boulvard.
They all have been instructed to lie low for a while after the US expose,
the sources maintained.
