16 February,2009 08:10 AM IST | | J Dey
Mumbai police officials say the Dawood gangu00a0may regroup in the city, if the Pakistani establishment's nightmares of a takeover of their country by the Taliban become a reality.
Dawood Ibrahim, who is believed to be in Pakistan, and his lieutenants would in the event of a takeover by the Taliban come out of hibernation, as international pressure to extradite the don would not be heeded by Islamabad, the cops feel.
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This, Mumbai police officers say, could affect Mumbai gangland.
"Earlier, we could bank to some extent on likeminded international allies to exert pressure on Pakistan to extradite Dawood Ibrahim. This will not be possible when the Taliban comes to power," Joint Commissioner of Police (crime) Rakesh Maria told MiD DAY.
Dawood, who is said to have been sighted with Taliban leaders in Peshawar in Pakistan and later Afghanistan around 1998, is believed to have funded the organization heavily enough for them to provide him with a safe house after the USA declared him a global terrorist in 2003.
Senior police officers in Mumbai say Dawood's multi-crore-underworld empire spreads across Mumbai, Dubai and Pakistan. He is also believed to have interests in real estate and films in Mumbai, and smuggling of fake currency into the country.
The Mumbai police have sent 15 requests for the extradition of Dawood Ibrahim and his lieutenant's extradition over the years that have yielded no results.
Attempts to extradite Dawood Ibrahim
Dawood is the prime accused in the 1993 bomb blasts. Every time the fugitive don is named in a case, a request is sent for his extradition through the Central Bureau of Investigation, the nodal investigative agency in India to the Interpol, which acts as a liaising agency, and red corner alerts are sent across the globe to collect information about the gangster's whereabouts or track him while travelling from one country to another. The process has failed as Dawood Ibrahim is known to have more than a dozen passports with different aliases. The Pakistani government continues to feign ignorance about Dawood's presence on their soil.
