Former Union Secretary RK Singh’s disclosure reveals Dawood Ibrahim’s links with Mumbai cops

Former Union home secretary RK Singh’s disclosure about aborting the plan to take out fugitive underworld don and mastermind of Mumbai serial blasts Dawood Ibrahim throws fresh spotlight on Dawood's links with sections of Mumbai cops.

Singh said the plan, prepared by national security advisor A K Doval when he headed the Intelligence Bureau under the Vajpayee government, involved using members of the rival underworld gang led by Chhota Rajan to target Dawood when he was set to travel to Dubai for the wedding of his daughter in 2005. However, the plot was disrupted by a posse of Mumbai cops who mysteriously emerged in Delhi to arrest Rajan's accomplice Vicky Malhotra and Fareed Tanasha.

Malhotra and Tanasha had travelled to Delhi to work out details of the plan.

It has rekindled suspicions about the manner in which Mumbai cops landed in New Delhi to enlist the help of Delhi Police ostensibly to execute arrest warrants pending against members of Chhota Rajan gang.

The claim is significant also because of the timing: it comes at a time when evidence has emerged that Doval's interest in the leader of the notorious crime syndicate may not have waned even after a decade he spent outside the government following his superannuation.

Last week, Indian agencies responded to claims of Pakistani officials here that they had got dossiers showing complicity of Indian agencies in Baluchistan insurgency by releasing a fresh photograph of the ageing don. So far, Indian agencies have used an old photograph - one which was taken in 1993 - in all the dossiers submitted to Pakistan to claim that the fugitive was being sheltered by the hostile neighbour, and to demand his return. The image of the ageing don with a receding hairline showed that Indian agencies have been tracking him with considerable success.

The dossier which Doval had planned to submit to his Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz had the latter not cried off from his engagement in Delhi, included the will that Dawood has prepared, bequeathing his property to his wife Mehzabeen, as well as the precise coordinates of the house Dawood bought next to a hospital in Karachi.

Dawood's infiltration of Mumbai Police has been part of the lore that has developed around him. A few years ago, Wikileaks disclosed that a senior inspector with Mumbai Police had to be cashiered because of his links with the don.

(Image credits: Indiatimes)