Dawood Ibrahim

Dawood Ibrahim दाऊद इब्राहीम कासकर
Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar
Born	Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar दाऊद इब्राहीम कासकर (1955-12-26) 26 December 1955 Khed Ratnagiri, Bombay State, India (now Maharashtra)
Spouse(s)	Mehjabeen Shaikh (aka Zubeena Zareen)[1]
Children	4
Relatives	Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar (brother) Iqbal Ibrahim Kaskar (brother)

Dawood Ibrahim (Konkani:दाऊद इब्राहीम कासकर, born Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar 26 December 1955), is an indicted racketeer and terrorist--who has been a fugitive since 1993. He headed the Indian organised crime syndicate D-Company founded in Mumbai.^[2][3] He is currently on the wanted list of Interpol for cheating, criminal conspiracy and running an organised crime syndicate.^[4] He was number three on the The World's 10 Most Wanted.^[5] Ibrahim is accused of heading an illegal empire in India, against India and Indians. After the 1993 Bombay bombings, which Ibrahim allegedly organised and financed with Tiger Memon,^[6] both became India's most wanted men.^[7][8]

According to the United States Department of Treasury, Ibrahim may have had ties with Osama bin Laden.^[9][10] As a consequence, the United States declared Ibrahim a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" in 2003 and pursued the matter before the United Nations in an attempt to freeze his assets around the world and crack down on his operations. The Bush administration imposed several sanctions on Ibrahim and his associates.^[11] Indian and Russian intelligence agencies have pointed out Ibrahim's possible involvement in several other terror attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks,^[12][13] as per Interpol.^[4][14][15] In 2010, a US Congressional report claimed that "D-company has a 'strategic alliance' with Pakistan's ISI".^[16] Ever since he took to hiding, his location has been frequently traced to Karachi, Pakistan, a claim which Pakistani authorities have denied.^[17]

Early life

Dawood Ibrahim was born on 26 December 1955 in a Konkani Muslim family in Ratnagiri district in the erstwhile Bombay State (now Maharashtra) of India.^[18] His father, Ibrahim Kaskar, worked as a head constable with the Crime Investigation Department (CID) and his mother, Amina, was a housewife.^[19] He grew up in the Dongri locality of Mumbai, which was when he came in contact with the gang of mobster Haji Mastan, after the latter attacked two of Ibrahim's men.^[20] Ibrahim, with his brother Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar formed the D-Company.

History

Ibrahim is believed to control much of the hawala system, which is the very commonly used unofficial system for transferring money and remittances outside the view of official agents. Much of the organisation's operations are in India.^[21][22]

Ibrahim is widely believed to have masterminded the March 1993 bombings in Bombay. In 2003, the Indian and United States governments declared Ibrahim a "Global Terrorist." The Deputy Prime Minister, Lal Krishna Advani described it as a major development and that India stands "vindicated." Ibrahim is currently on India's "Most Wanted List".^[23]

The United States Department of the Treasury has also designated Ibrahim as a terrorist as part of its international sanctions program – effectively forbidding US financial entities from working with him and seizing assets believed to be under his control. The Department of Treasury keeps a fact sheet on Ibrahim which contains reports of his syndicate having smuggling routes from South Asia, the Middle-East and Africa shared with and used by terrorist organisation al-Qaeda. The fact sheet also said that Ibrahim's syndicate is involved in large-scale shipment of narcotics in the United Kingdom and Western Europe. He is also believed to have had contacts with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden. In the late 1990s, Ibrahim travelled in Afghanistan under the Taliban's protection. The syndicate has consistently aimed to destabilise the Indian government through riots, terrorism and civil disobedience.^[24]

Washington added that they will request the United Nations to list Ibrahim "in pursuance of relevant Security Council resolutions". The UN listing will require that all UN member states freeze Ibrahim's assets and impose a travel ban. Juan Zarate, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, said that they are committed to identifying and attacking financial ties between terrorism and the underworld.^[23] Ibrahim is also suspected to have connections with terrorist organisations, and in 2002 was linked to the financing of increasing attacks in Gujarat by Lashkar-e-Toiba.^[23] New Delhi handed over to Islamabad a list of 38 most wanted criminals, including Ibrahim.^[11]

Ten members of his gang were arrested by Mumbai Crime Branch on 21 November 2006. They were extradited from the United Arab Emirates, from where they had been deported.^[25]

A TV news channel, India Today reported that Dawood Ibrahim provided the logistics for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.^[26]

News media outlets reported the murder of Shiraz Asghar Ali as a sign of a dramatic shift of power between the crime lords.^[27]

The Nepal government has directed freezing of assets of 224 individuals and 64 groups with Ibrahim if they are present in Nepal under Nepal's Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Act.^[28]

In 2013, former Indian cricketer Dilip Vengsarkar alleged that in 1986, Dawood had entered the Indian team dressing room in Sharjah and offered each Indian player a car if they beat Pakistan in the Sharjah Cup final.^[29]

Location

According to Indian claims, Dawood Ibrahim was believed to be living in Pakistan and then in the United Arab Emirates.^{[30][31][32][33]} According to Indian claims he has shifted to Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Indian sources add that "Inter-Services Intelligence appeared extremely wary of the new Indo-US cooperation to fight terrorism. The Inter-Services Intelligence and Dawood appear under a lot of pressure"^[34] On 5 May 2015 MP Haribhai Chaudhary informed the Lok Sabha (the lower house of India's Parliament) that the whereabouts of Ibrahim were unknown.^[35][36] However, on 11 May, Rajnath Singh, the Home Minister of India, told the parliament that Ibrahim was in Pakistan and he will bring him back to India.^{[35][37][38][39]}

According to claims of Indian news media Times Now on 22 August 2015, Dawood was in Karachi, Pakistan. According to said media corporation, they had conversation with a woman in Karachi on August 22, 2015. Transcripts of conversations which were published on the news agency's website, in one conversation she said that she is Dawood's wife and "he is sleeping", while in the second conversation she said that there was no one by that name known to her.^[40][41]

According to a dossier prepared by India in August 2015, to be handed over to Pakistan, Dawood Ibrahim has nine residences in Pakistan and has three Pakistani passports which he frequently uses to travel.^[42]

Family

In 2006, Ibrahim's daughter, Mahrukh Ibrahim, married Junaid Miandad, the son of Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad.^[7] In 2011, his daughter Mehreen, 24, married Ayub, a Pakistani-American.^[43] His son Moin married Saniya, daughter of a London-based businessman on 25 September 2011.^[44] Several of his family members, including his brother, Iqbal Kaskar, live in Mumbai.^[45]

See also

• Yakub Memon
• Tiger Memon

References

External links

• At Home In Exile
• BBC Profile on Ibrahim
• – Mumbai's Mafia War
• CNN-IBN's Program Dawood Decoded