‘We gave up chance to get Dawood’

Had our political establishment shown some will, underworld don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar would have been in India‘s custody a decade back.

According to Joginder Singh, a former director of the CBI, authorities in Dubai had agreed to hand over the fugitive gangster to India in 1996, on condition that India give it custody of a man wanted for murder in that country. But the then Indian government rejected the deal.

“I was heading the CBI in 1996, and had gone to Dubai to seek Dawood’s custody,” said Singh. “I had extensive meetings with the then police chief of Dubai.” (The Dubai police chief then was Colonel Trehyam).

“He agreed to hand over Dawood, but put forward a demand,” the former CBI chief said. “An Indian national, who fled Emirates after murdering five members of a family in Dubai, had taken shelter in Gujarat. The police chief said that if we hand him their man, he would give us Dawood.”

“I immediately got in touch with the government and repeatedly explained the significance of the exchange. But our political masters declined the offer. There was no harm in sending back a criminal who was wanted by the police for committing five murders.

In return, we could have got India’s most wanted criminal,” Singh said. The Centre was headed by the United Front, led by Prime Minister Deve Gowda.

“This is not new. We’ve often not been able to bring back many an accused from foreign countries because of a lack of political will.

A recent example is that of Maninder Singh Kohli, who is wanted in the murder of British teenager Hannah Foster. We took four years to send him back,” Singh said.

Joginder singh also recollected an earlier attempt made in 1995 by noted jurist Ram Jethmalani to bring back Dawood Ibrahim with certain minor concessions given to the fugitive don.

Jethmalani took the proposal to the then Congress bigwig Sharad Pawar who rejected the proposal. As per that proposal, Dawood had requested leniency towards his immediate family members.