AMERICA’S DEMAND that Pakistan must hand over India’s most-wanted fugitive and international terrorist Dawood Ibrahim for his alleged links with Al Qaeda-related terrorist groups and involvement in the global heroin trade should come as good news for India. Washington and New Delhi appear to be on the same wave length on this issue.
Dawood Ibrahim is a ‘living legend’ for all the wrong reasons. No single person in independent India has ever roused so much curiosity, contempt, curse and criticism and evoked such extreme reactions.
In terms of a commoner’s fanciful thought, Dawood is a mystery, an enigma, a fleet-footed nightmarish character who is invisible and yet who is omnipresent in India’s crimeland. Dawood implies gangsterism, killing and looting from Mumbai to Mallapuram. Dawood runs guns and goons, deploys whores and generates wealth, patronises land sharks and leads mafia wars.
The police are chasing him, intelligence sleuths are snooping on him, Customs is issuing classified alerts on him and the Income Tax Department is scrutinising his benami returns. Interpol has been frequently issuing red corner alerts
Yet Dawood remains unfazed and cannot be caged. He is alive but missing. He is supposed to be in Dubai, he was seen at Clifton in Karachi; he reportedly attended a marriage after undergoing cosmetic surgery. Speculations go on and rumours run riot. Yet Dawood remains unseen and unheard.
To make matters worse, the allegations against the most-wanted Indian are indeed serious. That he has invested millions of dollars in the financial capital of India and its outskirts, in trade and industry, in political funding, film production, transport and now communications! Dawood’s ‘investment’ today is ‘bearing fruit’.
In fact what has Osama been to the US since 9/11, Dawood has been to India for the last 25 years. Yet, whereas the world has responded positively to the US call to catch Osama, dead or alive and sustained military operations by international coalition forces have been launched, India’s repeated call to apprehend Dawood has always fallen on deaf ears.
Is it because Dawood has ceased to be a small time criminal and petty gangster of Mumbai? In the arena of criminals and the history of crime, Dawood is a shining example where individual attains the status of an institution who in turn becomes an ‘icon’, and then turns into an ‘idol’.
Yes, since Dawood’s crimes in the past have now started yielding tangible gains in the form of financial profit to his numerous partners, one doubts as to whether he will be caught at all or not.
Assuming, without conceding, that Pakistan does hand over Dawood to American agencies, what happens? In one stroke chaos and all round desperation are likely to follow and fear would grip many powerful individuals across Asia. Since 9/11, the US is supposed to be the strongest, roughest and the toughest votary of the ‘global war on terror’.
