Nov

30

26/11, The blame game, chapter 3 - Dawood Ibrahim

November 30, 2008 posted by indiatime |

“….Mumbai was Mumbai. There we had everything, here one cannot have the life or the fun we did in India….”
- Dawood Ibrahim’s associate to Pakistani journalist

India’s most wanted criminal, our own Osama - Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar has proved to be an elusive character. Having left India in the late 1980s, his grip on Mumbai’s underworld is still intact, and his connections in Karachi’s underworld have never been better. That’s because Dawood Ibrahim’s illegally accumulated wealth has been playing wonders for him wherever he is. When he lived in Dubai for years, famous Bollywood stars were eager to be photographed with him (including a sitting parliament member from Mumbai), famous singers and composers (including a sitting judge on Indian Idol) entertained him, politicians knew him, film financiers borrowed from him, Cricketers thanked him for his patronage of the game.

A few years ago, Dawood, having turned a small-time mafia operation into a corporation with the help of Pakistan’s ISI, formed a partnership with radical fundamentalists and separatist militants. The merger gave Dawood something he never had before - young impressionable minds with religious fervor. And it gave the militants a venture capitalist who would invest in their ideology so long as it fit his purpose. The third and the most important link in this terror trifecta is the local political machinery of Pakistan, its spy agencies, and elements within its military.

India has been tracking Dawood and his activities for last 20-plus years. India has known about his Bollywood and sports connections for years if not decades. After the 1993 blasts, some of the accused and Dawood accomplices were rumored to have escaped on flights with some heavyweight politicians sitting in the next seats. Some of India’s recent television celebrities have been known to have associated with and romanced with Dawood’s closest friends.

All of which makes one believe that India has never been really serious about Dawood. We have known that he has lived in Dubai for years. We never really pressured Dubai into handing him over. We have known about his Karachi residences and his email ids and phone numbers and everything. But all India has ever managed to get out of the rest of the world is Dawood’s name being listed by the US on the top world terrorist list. That’s hilarious because his one-time wife and his son from her are said to be living a peaceful life in America. Time and again, Pakistan has denied that Dawood lives in Karachi. But everyone else seems to know his residential address in Clifton, Karachi.

Dawood’s friends and family still live happily in Mumbai, and seem to have quite cordial relations with the Mumbai police. And almost a dozen of his known associates have been let out of jail in recent times.

So once again, we come to this point where, knowing well that Dawood has a hand in the Mumbai terror attacks (providing the logistical and backend support and probably financing the operation itself), the real blame must lie with those who have taken this dangerous man for a friendly gangster, allowing him to be in our public lives, whether as a cricket bettor or a film financier or a political backer. It is beyond belief that India knows where this person lives and still cannot pressure countries much smaller than ourselves, to hand him over to us.

Maybe we just don’t have enough leverage or international standing to pressure any other nation about anything. If that is the case, we should stop any and all poppytalk about superpowerdom. Because that makes us look really stupid. Or maybe our politicians just do not have it in them to muster enough will and gather enough fortitude to stand up and demand from, or pressure any other nation. Maybe that’s why, even when they try in earnest, our leaders’ demands sound more like beggings and their roars sound more like mere whimpers.

And shame on all those Indians who associated themselves with Dawood Ibrahim. The music composers, actors, parliament members, Cricketers, politicians, chief ministers, all of them. I hope they feel sorry and I hope they feel some remorse for having befriended the killers of Hemant Karkare and Vijay Salaskar and Ajit Kamte and Major Unnikrishnan and all other heroes who lost their lives this week.


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3 Comments so far

  1. ravi on December 1, 2008 10:47 am

    bravo! read all 3 parts…very blunt

  2. MVP on December 4, 2008 3:49 am

    IF DESHMUKH (DESHMURKH MEANS INDIANFOOL )DOES NOT REGRET THE ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY MILITANTS THAN HOW CAN YOU EXPECT FROM ALL THOSE INDIANS ASSOCIATED WITH DAWOOD EBRAHIM TO FEEL ASHAMED.IT IS NOTHING BUT SHAME CALLING MYSELF AN INDIAN . GOVERNMENT SHOULD PENALISE ALL THOSE PEOPLE ASSOCIATED WITH DAWOOD EBRAHIM, ALL OF THEM SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM HIGH POST OR JOB THEY CARRY AT PRESENT. MANUFACTURERS OF BULLETPROOF JACKETS SHOULD BE HANGED. MANUFACTURERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATH OF MR.HEMANT KARKARE,MR.VIJAY SALASKER,MR.AJIT KAMTE AND MR.MAJOR UNNIKRISHNAN.ALL THOSE WHO ACCEPTED THE SUB STANDARD JACKETS SHOULD BE PROSECUTED ALSO.

  3. ganesh on December 9, 2008 2:03 am

    Salam My Friend.

    Truly if i were the pResident, i would give you a Padma shree for writing My Mind

    i salute you, because we need citizens like you to clean up our country

    The biggest Thing for any True Indian, even bigger than his Religion ,is his love and unconditional protection of “Our Bharat mata”

    i hate all those politiciana and celebrities who have traded “Money” for their Motherland and i really dipise them and ashmed to even associate them with being indian

    please start Publishing names of celebrities who have been known to associate with , underworld and india Haters, and let us make this Begining-you, me and all indian Lovers, of exposing such “non-indians”

    jai bharat mata

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