'D' Lying Low In Islamabad

Life isn't trigger-happy for Dawood Ibrahim any more. Once comfortably ensconced in Karachi, and enjoying the hospitality of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), his enemies are now ensuring he doesn't have a settled existence. Following the ISI's interception of a 'Get Bhai Plan' by his RAW-sponsored enemies to sneak into the port city and target him, the underworld don has been made to relocate en famille to Islamabad where he now lives in a high-security zone under the ISI's covert protection.

The 'Get Bhai Plan' was masterminded by Indian intelligence in collaboration with Dawood's main business rival and former right-hand man, Rajender Sadashiv Nikhalje alias Chhota Rajan. The plan was to be executed by Rajan's No. 1 hitman, Rohit Verma alias Michael D'Souza, whose operatives had even visited Karachi twice to carry out a recce of Dawood's hideouts there. This happened a few months after the US treasury department identified Dawood as a global terrorist in October 2003.

His inclusion in the list came as an embarrassment to Islamabad, especially as the US department in its reasons for doing so cited intelligence reports of his connection with global outlaws Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Toiba. The department's fact-sheet on Dawood stated: "Dawood Ibrahim, son of a police constable, has financially supported Islamic militant groups working against India such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Information as recent as fall 2002 indicates that Ibrahim had been helping finance terrorist attacks in the Indian state of Gujarat by Lashkar-e-Toiba, the armed wing of Markaz Dawa Wal Irshad—an anti-US Sunni missionary organisation, formed in 1989."

However, the plan failed to come to fruition—courtesy a leak. It did succeed, though, in making Dawood shift to Islamabad. The don has also undergone plastic surgery to avoid easy detection. Thus he has managed to evade the law despite Interpol having issued a Special International Notice for him.

The Interpol Notice comes in addition to the Red Corner Notice the policing agency had issued at the cbi's behest immediately after the 1993 blasts in Mumbai. During its 74th general assembly, which concluded in Geneva on September 24, 2005, the Interpol decided to issue a new notice to support the UN Security Council in its fight against terrorism. The notice is now effective in 186 member countries, including Pakistan.

These arrest warrants have heralded the disintegration of the D-Company. Already struggling to stay afloat in Karachi after the mysterious death of Dawood frontman Shoaib Khan in Pakistan in January 2005, it has almost wound up its construction as well as other businesses in Karachi. With the death of Shoaib, a real challenge to the extortion business of the ruling Muttahida Qaumi Movement in Sindh, it has lost its stronghold in Karachi. And Dubai, where Dawood first set up home after fleeing India in 1984, has suddenly become unfriendly to him and his gang after it signed an extradition treaty with India.

Even in Islamabad, things aren't easy for Dawood. He has to change residences frequently; even his movements have been greatly restricted. This is because in the post-9/11 scenario, the ISI simply cannot afford to be caught on the wrong foot, and certainly not for someone wearing a made-in-US tag reading "global terrorist".

In fact, Dawood has become somewhat of a burden for Islamabad as well, given the incongruity of its simultaneous role as an ally in the US war on terror. Earlier, Pakistan didn't bother much about the security implications of harbouring a mafia don. Now Dawood cannot travel to any other country because of the Interpol's warrants. Even otherwise, the Pakistani establishment would not allow him to risk fleeing the country even under a changed identity.

Intelligence sources say Dawood has already been cautioned by his contacts in the ISI, no longer influential in the present set-up. They have told him that if Pakistan and India forge further alliances for the war on terror, the latter could ask for him to be handed over for trial and the former would not be able to refuse. Some intelligence sources say the ISI is already nurturing another group led by Anwar, younger brother of Dawood's right-hand man, Chhota Shakeel. Dawood could well be becoming irrelevant, some even say his protectors may finally opt to eliminate him.

Other intelligence sources, however, dispute reports that the ISI can either abandon or eliminate him. They insist that Dawood remains important to them as he and his associates have some valuable contacts in India that are regularly used to carry out spying as well as terrorist activities.