New Delhi: After facing flak from Opposition, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said that India has effective intelligence to prove that underworld don Dawood Ibrahim is in Pakistan.
Making a statement in Lok Sabha, Rajnath Singh said, “Pakistan was given all relevant documents on Dawood Ibrahim but they have failed to start process to locate him.”
He further added, “India has credible information of Dawood Ibrahim being in Pakistan. We will pursue and pressurize Pakistan in tracking Dawood.”
Singh also said that India will leave no stone unturned to bring him back.
A week ago, Lok Sabha was informed that Dawood’s location is not known and once he is located, his extradition process will be initiated.
Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary said Dawood is an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case and a red corner notice has been issued against him.
However, after the government was left red- faced over its contradictory reply in Parliament on the whereabouts of Dawood Ibrahim, junior Home Minister Kiren Rijiju said the underworld don lives in Pakistan and the Centre would continue to pursue the case very seriously.
Interestingly, the government has been maintaining for a long time that Dawood is living in Pakistan with the patronage of Pakistani security establishment. The name of Dawood, who is wanted in connection with 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, figures in almost all the dossiers that have been handed over to Pakistan since the NDA rule in early 2000.
Dawood, who has been listed as as Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the United States for his alleged links with al Qaeda terror group, vanished from Mumbai between 1992-93 and settled in a Gulf country.
The CBI has alleged that he conspired with ISI to carry out serial blasts in Mumbai in which 257 people were killed and property worth Rs 32 crore damaged
Former Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar in an interview to a national daily last week, was quoted as saying Dawood, labelled by the US as ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorist’, had got in touch with him and wanted to surrender, but the plan was shelved by the government.
However, the 1976 batch IPS officer who retired as Delhi police chief in 2013, later denied reports attributed to him that Dawood had negotiated surrender with him months after the 1993 blasts and that the government of the day scuttled the plans at the last moment.
