US wiretap tracks Dawood to Pak - Calcutta Telegraph

Dawood Ibrahim

New Delhi, Dec. 27: An American wiretap of an alleged conversation between Dawood Ibrahim and a Dubai-based person has handed India fresh evidence that the 1993 Mumbai blasts mastermind remains based out of Karachi despite repeated denials by Pakistan.

The taped conversation, which officials said the US has shared with India’s external intelligence agency RAW, triggered a flurry of comments from senior leaders.

But RAW will examine the tape before India lodges a formal protest with Pakistan, seeking an explanation for its previous refusals to acknowledge Dawood’s presence on its soil, officials said.

“We have repeatedly asked Pakistan to hand over Dawood Ibrahim,” home minister Rajnath Singh said. “Let’s be patient; action will be taken soon.”

India has on multiple occasions since 1993 presented Pakistan with evidence —wiretaps of conversations, confessional statements by his aides, photos and other intelligence inputs — suggesting that Dawood lives in Karachi’s plush Clifton Road neighbourhood.

Some of this earlier evidence too came from the US, which, by the late 1990s, had begun to frequently share intelligence with India on the neighbourhood.

But Pakistan has never acknowledged that Dawood lives on its soil, though its former President Pervez Musharraf did admit in a television interview in 2011 that the man India considers a wanted terrorist is “held in high esteem” in Pakistan.

A voice purportedly belonging to Dawood — a declared terrorist both in India and in the US — is heard in the latest tape discussing the purchase of property with a person in Dubai.

It is unclear which among America’s multiple spy agencies tapped the conversation.

The conversation is laced with the threats and lofty self-belief that those who have tracked Dawood for years say he is notorious for.

“I would not have asked so loving for information,” the voice allegedly belonging to Dawood says in a mix of Urdu and Hindi. “I know how to extract information — that is the only way I extract information.”

Later, in the context of a court case involving the property, the man says: “I am the judge. I am not going to any court. I have a court of my own.”

In the conversation, Dawood does not mention India or Pakistan. But the origin of the telephone call was traced by the American agency to Karachi, Indian officials said.

“Evidence of Dawood residing in Pakistan was always there,” junior home minister Kiren Rijiju said. “This latest evidence has made our case stronger.”