Abdul Razzak Memon alias Tiger Memon, and his younger brother, Ayub Memon, are in Dubai, a top officer of the Central Bureau of Investigation told DNA.
Baljeet Parmar. & Amir Mir
MUMBAI /KARACHI: The main accused in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, Abdul Razzak Memon alias Tiger Memon, and his younger brother, Ayub Memon, are in Dubai, a top officer of the Central Bureau of Investigation told DNA. Pakistani intelligence agency sources also confirmed that Memon was leading the “luxurious life” of a “respectable businessman”.
“Tiger and Ayub are in Dubai and we are constantly monitoring their movements,” said DK Pardeshi, Deputy Superintendent of Police, CBI and key member of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that handled the blasts case.
Tiger and Ayub run a construction business in Dubai in partnership with Dawood Ibrahim’s brother Anees. “He also owns some shops, which are handled by his brother Ayub,” Pardeshi said.
Indian intelligence agency sources told DNA that both Tiger and Ayub have been provided with alternative identities by Pakistani authorities. “The brothers keep shuttling between Dubai and Karachi,” said a top intelligence official. “We had informed UAE about their presence. But their officials say they cannot find them.”
Pakistani intelligence sources told DNA that Tiger Memon had to leave Karachi in December 2003 in the wake of two powerful bomb blasts in Kawish Crown Plaza — a multi-storey building situated on Sharea Faisal — on July 11 and September 19, 2003.
The attacks were a warning that Tiger Memon, the trusted lieutenant of Dawood Ibrahim who had been using the building as the Dawood Company’s headquarters, was vulnerable.
Sources said that the blasts were masterminded by Dawood’s friend-turned-foe Chhota Rajan. They claimed that the blasts were carried out with the assistance of the Indian intelligence agencies, which wanted to tell the world that Tiger Memon was hiding in Karachi along with Dawood.
A few weeks after the blasts the American Treasury Department declared [in October 2003] Dawood Ibrahim a specially designated global terrorist hiding in Pakistan. Tiger Memon had been living in House No C-201, Extension-A, Karachi Development Scheme at that time.
Tiger had constructed the Kawish Crown Plaza on a site designated as a public park. When a local NGO, Shehri, protested the unauthorised occupation and filed a case against Memon, it was promptly asked to mind its own business. “The ISI told us it is a Dawood Ibrahim building,” an office bearer of the Shehri said.
—With inputs from Neeta Kolhatkar
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