For the first time in three decades, Pakistan has accepted that Dawood Ibrahim is in Pakistan, said Indian government officials on Saturday. The claim came after a sanction order issued by the Pakistan government on August 18, proscribing 88 terrorists under the United Nations Sanction Resolution, included the underworld gangster.
Ibrahim, who heads a vast and multifaceted illegal business, has emerged as India's most wanted terrorist after the 1993 Mumbai bombings. The tough sanctions would lead to the seizure of his properties and the freezing of his bank accounts.
Soon after the August statutory resolution was made public, many other similar documents from 2015 and 2019 also emerged where Pakistan had made the same claim about Ibrahim, attributing his presence in the country to United Nations and Interpol sources.
India, however, questioned the veracity of these documents. Indian government officials who represent India at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) plenary told CNN-News18 that Pakistan has until now never told the organisation about the presence of any such statutory resolution from 2015 or 2019 where either Ibrahim or Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, was proscribed.
"These 2015 and 2019 statutory resolutions appear to be back-dated. If these were true, then it would have been reflected in the FATF records. Lakhvi and Dawood have never been mentioned by Pakistan in any official document till the 2020 statutory resolution," said the sources.
The August 18 statutory resolution of the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentions Ibrahim in the annexures as one of the individuals being proscribed under the UN resolutions. The order detailing him mentions his various aliases, his Pakistani passport numbers and his address in Karachi.
Under the section on Ibrahim's several passports and their numbers, the order lists five passports issued in Pakistan. "j)(Pakistan number C866537, issued on 12 August 1991, in Rawalpindi. (k) c267185- issued in july 1996 in karachi (I) H-122359 - issued in Rawalpindi in july 2001 (m) G-869537: issued in Rawalpindi. (n)KC,-285901," it said.
Of these five, Pakistan claims Ibrahim misued the August 1991 passport and also another passport issued by Dubai in August 1985.
In this order, Pakistan has also accepted India's contention that Ibrahim lives in Clifton, Karachi. Under the address section, it notes, "a) Karachi, Pakistan - White house, near Saudi Mosque, Clifton b) Palatial bunglow in the hilly area of Noorabad, Karachi."
In an earlier expose, CNN-News18 had showed how those living in the Saudi Mosque neighbourhood of Clifton had openly admitted to Ibrahim being their neighbour.
However, the Pakistani order makes it clear that no national identification number has been issued to him. It also provides a link to the Interpol and UN websites, seemingly in an effort to attribute all the information about his passport and address details to the two global agencies.
Indian agency officials said Pakistan has accepted the details of Ibrahim presented by New Delhi in the UN to escape the FATF grey list.
Among the 88 banned banned terror groups and their leaders, Pakistan has imposed sanctions on 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar. The notifications announced sanctions on key figures of terror outfits such as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), JeM, Taliban, Daesh, Haqqani Group, al-Qaeda, and others.
The government ordered the seizure of all movable and immovable properties of these outfits and individuals, and freezing of their bank accounts, the report said. These terrorists have been barred from transferring money through financial institutions, purchasing of arms and travelling abroad, it said.
The notifications ratified a complete ban on all leaders and members of defunct Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) hiding in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas. The paper reported that Saeed, Azhar, Mullah Fazlullah (alias Mullah Radio), Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Muhammad Yahya Mujahid, Abdul Hakeem Murad, wanted by Interpol, Noor Wali Mehsud, Fazal Raheem Shah of Uzbekistan Liberation Movement, Taliban leaders Jalaluddin Haqqani, Khalil Ahmad Haqqani, Yahya Haqqani, and Ibrahim and his associates were on the list.
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