The new evidence also reveals that Pakistan provided the Memon brothers with forged passports on the basis of which they obtained visas for Thailand. What will add to Pakistan's discomfort, however, is that the evidence has not come from the interrogation of the seven Memon family members currently in custody and facing trial in Bombay, but from Thailand, a country which is completely neutral in the ongoing war of attrition between India and Pakistan. The evidence, according to Home Ministry sources, has also been corroborated by Interpol.
It was already known that practically the entire Memon family, with the exception of Tiger Memon, had left for Dubai on March 11, 1993, a day before the blasts occurred in Bombay. On March 17, they boarded a Pakistan International Airlines flight and went to Karachi, where they were promptly provided aliases and national identity cards bearing these false identities. Documents received from the Thai authorities reveal that Yakub Memon was given the alias of Yousuf Ahmad Mohammad (national identity card No. AJ 763587) and that he was provided a Pakistani passport (AA 763242, dated 6.4.1994) in the same name.
On the basis of his Pakistani passport, Yakub approached the Royal Thailand Embassy in Islamabad for a visa to Bangkok. It was much later, and largely because of the efforts of Interpol, that the Thai authorities realised that the Yusuf they had given the visa to was in fact the Yakub Memon wanted by India in the Bombay blasts case. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)now has the related documents pertaining not only to Yakub Memon, but to the other members of the family as well. A fresh chargesheet (the 14th such document relating to the blasts case) is being prepared and will be filed shortly in the special TADA court in Bombay. The CBI authorities are ecstatic about the new evidence. "It will be virtually impossible for the Pakistanis to deny their involvement now," says a senior Home Ministry official.
It is not just the documents received from Thailand which are telling. There is additional evidence from Singapore as well, where Tiger Memon, the leader of the Memon pack, managed to find sanctuary courtesy Pakistan. Tiger Memon's trip was sponsored from Karachi. Indian security agencies, sleuthing for the past two monthsin Singapore and other countries in southeast Asia to track down the movements of the Memons, have in their possession valid passport and visa documents which prove that the ISI extended help to Tiger Memon.
Of the Memon family, Abdul Razzaq, Yakub, Issa Abdul Razzaq and Suleiman are in custody while the prime accused, Tiger Memon and brother Ayub, are on the list of absconders. The most revealing documents were recovered from the first of the arrested Memons, Yakub Abdul Razzak, who was picked up reportedly by the investigating agencies on August 5 last year. Within a month, all members of the Memon family, except Tiger Memon and Ayub, had been picked up from various points in the country. Investigators point out that while the cases against the Memon women—Hanifa, Rahin and Rubina—may not be too strong, the Memon men may find it hard to prove their innocence.
There is enough evidence, Indian authorities say, to piece together a picture of how the Memons lived during their short stay in Bangkok. After they reached Bangkok on April 17, 1994, on a Thai Airways flight, they were kept in a bungalow on the outskirts of the city for 12 days, during which they were not allowed to move around. On April 29, they were taken back to Karachi once again by a Thai Airways flight.
A third angle to the entire chain of events is then introduced which defies the traditional Indo-Pak sabre rattling. Well-placed sources in the Home Ministry say that the Thai Government has confirmed that the visas issued to the Memons at their embassy in Islamabad were genuine. The Indian Government has in its possession entries made in the Memons' tourist visas at the time of leaving Karachi, entry into Bangkok and the return trip. "Even though Pakistan claims that the documents are forged, they have a problem because there are two neutral countries now which say the papers are genuine," says an official connected with the investigations.
Similarly, the Singapore Embassy in Pakistan has confirmed the movements of Tiger Memon, all of course on a false identity. Officials say that the Singapore angle could be sticky for Pakistan, given Singapore's stringent criminal law procedures and the strict neutrality it follows in matters of international law.
The upshot of all this is going to be a round of hectic diplomacy in the coming few weeks. Already the Indian Government and the CBI have sent letter rogatories or a letter of requests to Dubai in March-April 1994 asking for the deportation of DawoodIbrahim and Tiger Memon, among 30 others who are reportedly absconding and may be hiding in Dubai. Last week, the Government shot off another letter to Dubai. The response from the Dubai authorities: Dawood cannot be traced.
However, officials here believe that Dawood is safely ensconced in Karachi where deportation proceedings cannot be initiated. This year, intelligence sleuths traced Dawood's address in Karachi and said that the former Bombay don now spends more time in Pakistan than in Dubai, where he faces the threat of extradition, particularly after the diplomatic initiatives of the last few months to deport him to India. He also fears an attack by his rivals from Bombay. In August this year, one of his key aides Sunil Sawant—also known as Dawood's 'defence minister'—was gunned down at point blank range in Dubai. Its repercussions were felt in Bombay when a prominent city builder, Omprakash Kukreja, was shot dead allegedly at the behest of Dawood. Kukreja was seen by Dawood as being close to arch rival Chhota Rajan.
According to one Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official, there are several hitches in the process of deportation. First, the country to whom the request has been sent must be totally cooperative and secondly, deportation, like extradition, involves the procedure of arrest. "In the current scheme of things, none of the two seems either possible or feasible," says the MEA official. India has no extradition treaty with any Gulf country.
The question that arises is, what comes after the supplementary chargesheet proving Pakistan's direct involvement? In the absence of any extradition accords with the Gulf countries—much less Pakistan, which has been strongly protesting its innocence—little can be done about bringing the prime accused to Indian courts. Investigators also rule out the theory doing the rounds that getting Dawood or Tiger Memon could be 'arranged' and that their return to face trial could be made 'conditional'. "They (Dawood and Tiger Memon) have blood on their hands. There can possibly be no conditions here,'' says an investigating official. Though he admits that 'some' contact with Dawood was established in 1994, it never worked. The point is, can diplomats work wonders where investigators have failed? The coming weeks may have an answer to that.
