Dawood is Surat police's 'most wanted'

Sudhakar Rao / TNN / Dec 23, 2005, 21:24 IST

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Many other high-profile names in the world of crime figure in a discreetly maintained record of the city police.

SURAT: If ever the underworld don, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, classified as a global terrorist, is caught by the Indian police, the fugitive may have to go through some grilling at the hands of Surat city police.
Based in Karachi, the underworld don figures in their 'most wanted' list. Many other high-profile names in the world of crime figure in a discreetly maintained record of the city police.
According to sources, there are about 12 such underworld fugitives in the police records who are wanted for either bomb blast cases, incidents of extortion or other crimes.
Prominent among them are Dawood, his brother Anees Ibrahim, Chhota Shakeel and Mohammad Farooque Surti, reportedly bas ed in Pakistan, Mohmadi Gajnabi who operates from Dubai, Hanif Tiger based in United Kingdom, Bharat Nepali based in Nepal and Chhota Rajan and Fazlu-ur-Rehman, now in Malaysia.

Dawood's name first appeared in the 1993 Varachha bomb blast case in January. One person was killed and several others injured in the blast.
A similar blast aimed at passengers aboard Gujarat Express rocked the city in April, injuring 38 persons.
Both the blasts were engineered to flare up communal tension soon after Mumbai serial bomb blasts of 1993.
Memories of the blast came alive on November 3 when police arrested D company member Munir Ahmed Soni from his house at Soni Falia for his involvement in smuggling illegal arms purportedly used for the incident.

The D company's involvement came to light yet again in 2001 when Dawood's men were caught by the detection of crime branch of the city police.
By that time, Dawood had the diamond city on his 'wishlist' and had started extorting money from local businessmen.
In fact, DCB sleuths arrested Mohammad Ashraf Khan alias Montu and seven others for firing on BJP leader Harivadhan Chimanlal and for smuggling in a large cache of ammunition into the city.
The accused, who were also involved in various extortion cases, had admitted that Dawood and Chhota Shakeel were masterminding the operations.
If Dawood has not been visible in the Surat crime scene since then, his enemy number one Chhota Rajan had always found the city a favourite hunting ground to run his extortion empire.
The city police have arrested his close aides on several occasions in the past.There are countless cases of extortion, kidnapping and murder against Chhota Rajan in the city police registers.
However, police commissioner Sudhir Sinha says, "In the present situation, there is no such evidence to suggest that there is any underworld presence in the city."

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