The Sunday Guardian’s request to relevant government officials in the United Arab Emirates for their response on the matter did not elicit a reply till the time of going to press.
Intelligence sources, however, confirmed that the UAE government had started acting on the information shared by the Indian government in 2015.
It is pertinent to mention that the wedding of Mahrukh, daughter of the 61-year-old Dawood Ibrahim, with cricketer Javed Miandad’s son Junaid, had taken place in Dubai in July 2015, just one month before Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Dubai, during which, according to officials, the Indian delegation that included National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, submitted a lengthy dossier detailing the properties owned by Dawood and his associates. The PM, according to Intelligence officials, had personally stressed on the need to take immediate action on the basis of the information provided in the dossier to the UAE officials.
Officials aware of the development said that Dawood, who did not attend the wedding of his daughter and used video conferencing to interact with the guests, has lost his “hold” that he once had in Dubai. “He has very few friends left now. After 26/11, Dubai changed its outlook towards terrorism and terrorists. It does not want itself to be identified as a safe haven for terrorists. It has spent and is spending billions of dollars to promote itself as a global investment hub. Dawood’s financial prowess has decreased significantly in the last 3-4 years and it is just a matter of time when his chapter closes, one way or the other,” an official said.
Officials said that there was a very strong possibility that Dawood, who is ailing due to kidney problems, might “come back” or be brought back to India. “That cannot be ruled out; it is a decision that will be taken at the very highest level,” the official said.
However, according to officials, the decision to “arrange” for his “capture” is fraught with a lot of risks, both from external sources and sources within India, as his questioning by Indian authorities and subsequent disclosures might affect a long list of names including those mentioned in the Narinder Nath Vohra Committee that had written about how certain high ranking politicians had helped him and taken his cooperation.