India says Dawood Ibrahim’s location is ‘no secret’, Pakistan denies gangster’s presence in country

The D-Company chief Dawood Ibrahim is a UN proscribed terrorist and is a wanted in the 1993 and 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. (File photo)

India Thursday warned Islamabad to hand over underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, saying his location was “not a secret”. Pakistan, however, claimed that he is not in the country. This comes a day after a UK court was informed that the gangster is currently in exile in the country.

During an ongoing extradition trial of one of Dawood’s close aides, 51-year-old Jabir Moti, known to be a “high-ranking member of D-Company”, the whereabouts of Ibrahim was revealed to the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London. “The head of D Company is Dawood Ibrahim, an Indian Muslim currently in exile in Pakistan. Dawood Ibrahim and his brother and top lieutenant, Anis Ibrahim, have been fugitives from India since 1993, when D Company was implicated in coordinated bombings in Mumbai that killed more than 200 people,” according to excerpts of a US Attorney’s affidavit for extradition read out by Moti’s barrister, Edward Fitzgerald

“Dawood Ibrahim is not in Pakistan,” Foreign Office Spokesperson Muhammad Faisal said in response to a question during his weekly press conference in Islamabad.

Story continues below this ad

Dawood, who heads a vast and multifaceted illegal business, has emerged as India’s most wanted terrorist after the 1993 Mumbai bombings.

According to the US, Dawood maintains close links with terror outfit al-Qaeda. As a result, the US declared him a “global terrorist” and pursued the matter before the United Nations in an attempt to freeze his assets across the world and crack down on his operations.

Dawood’s aide Moti faces extradition to the US on charges of money laundering, extortion and conspiracy to import unlawful substances such as heroine.

Moti was arrested by Scotland Yard officers from a London hotel in August 2018 in connection with a US grand jury indictment following an extensive FBI investigation.

with PTI inputs