Memon approached officials in the Indian high commission in London and expressed a desire to return home provided he is offered a suitable “deal”.
NEW DELHI: After extortionist Abu Salem, it could be the turn of drug trafficker Mohammed Iqbal Memon alias Iqbal Mirchi alias Iqbal Merchant to return to India.
An intelligence source said Memon approached officials in the Indian high commission in London and expressed a desire to return home provided he is offered a suitable “deal”. The source refused to say what the deal involves.
Memon’s offer could be the result of various factors, the source said. His wife and children cannot travel to England because of restrictions imposed on them. His properties in India — a flat on Juhu Tara Road, Hotel Minaz in Juhu, and three buildings at the Worli Sea Face — were attached by a Mumbai court in 1999.
The most critical factor, however, may be the American noose tightening around his neck. Memon’s name figured in the trial of Hemant Lakhani, the Briton who was jailed early this year for trying to smuggle a shoulder-fired missile-launcher into the US.
Memon, who fled India in 1994, has been mostly living in the upmarket locality of Hornchurch in the county of Essex. In between he had been to the UAE, but Indian pressure forced him to return to England. The United Nations and the US list him among the world’s top drug dealers. In April 2005, the US put him on a list of ‘specially designated narcotics traffickers’ and blocked his entry into the country.
Known to possess both Indian and UAE passports, Memon hit the headlines in 1994 when police found a huge Mandrax manufacturing unit in Pune.
In the past he has fought off Indian efforts to extradite him from England. In 1995 Scotland Yard raided Memon in England and booked him for drugs trafficking and terrorism on the basis of the Indian claim that he was involved in the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts.
But when the case came up in court, only a murder charge was pressed against Mirchi and not enough evidence was found to extradite him. Memon won legal costs from the Indian government and secured permission from the British home office to live indefinitely in England.
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