A week after committing blunder on Dawood's location status, the government on Monday made a U turn and asserted that the 1993 Mumbai train blasts mastermind is in Pakistan and the government would do everything to bring him back.
A week after committing blunder on Dawood's location status, the government on Monday made a U turn and asserted that the 1993 Mumbai train blasts mastermind is in Pakistan and the government would do everything to bring him back.
In reply to a question in Lok Sabha last week, union home ministry had denied having any knowledge of Dawood's location thus attracting severe criticism from the opposition.
"Whether we have to pursue Pakistan or pressurise it, we will not rest till Dawood Ibrahim is brought back," union home minister Rajnath Singh said in Lok Sabha, adding that India continues to pressurise Pakistan at all levels to fulfill its international obligation and locate Dawood Ibrahim and other other terrorists and hand them over to India.
Singh said that despite being under obligation to locate Dawood on whom a red corner notice has been issued and providing overwhelming evidence Pakistan has failed to locate him and initiate legal process.
However, within hours of Rajnath's emphatic statement, cocking a snook at India Pakistan denied having any knowledge of Dawood's whereabouts.
Pakistan's high commissioner Abdul Basit in Lucknow stoked a controversy by referring to Dawood as Sahab and denying his presence in Pakistan.
"Iske baare mein yahi keh sakta hun ki wo Sahab Pakistan mein nahi hain. Iss se zyada kya kahun? (On this issue I can only say that that Sahab is not in Pakistan. What do I say more than this.)
Comparing Dawood's issue with flogging a dead horse, former chief of Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), A S Dulat said, "Everybody knows that Dawood has been in Pakistan. India has provided enough evidence and this has been going on for 20 years. But Pakistan has not acted on it and has made it amply clear that it would not act on it."
Dulat, however, reads a change in government's approach.
"Former home minister Advaniji perhaps made this demand to Pakistan on 20 occasions but he never talked so emphatically about bringing Dawood back. Perhaps, this government thinks different and thus may act differently. If it has been said by a person who is on the responsible post of union home minister, then it must have some basis or else the public would ask him after 4 years what happened to Dawood?," Dulat said.
A former intelligence bureau official not ready to be quoted said, if given the go ahead, Indian agencies are capable of making plans to neutralise Dawood if not bring him back.
"The thinking was in this direction when the present NSA Ajit Doval was the IB chief. Some progress was also made but the plan could take off because of some glitches. But in the avatar of NSA, Doval is capable of executing surgical operations and Pakistan's ISI knows this well enough and would have shifted Dawood to very safe location that very few would know about. After all it provided a safe haven to world's most wanted Osama bin Laden right under US's nose in Abbottabad," the official said.
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