Kill saffron leaders, get South Africa jobs, said Dawood company

NEW DELHI: Target Hindu leaders seen to have had a role in the Gujarat 2002 riots and those perceived as "anti-Muslim" and get good money and jobs in South Africa: this was a line Dawood Ibrahim's D-Company used to lure recruits to execute its plan to create communal tension in India. TOI had reported on May 6 that Dawood plotted social unrest to upset the Modi government.

The National Investigation Agency chargesheet in an Ahmedabad court against 10 D-Company men accuses them of being part of a "larger conspiracy" to attack Hindu leaders that led to the gunning down of former BJP chief of Bharuch Shirish Bangali and BJP youth wing leader Pragnesh Mistry last year.

The D-Company bosses, NIA says, also asked its recruits in India to throw petrol bombs made in empty liquor bottles and indulge in arson in churches. The motive, NIA sources say, was to create communal tension.

In its chargesheet, details of which were exclusively accessed by TOI, NIA has stated, "D-Company, through Javed Chikna planned to target BJP, RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal leaders..."

For carrying out the attacks, Rs 50 lakh was sent to Gujarat from Dubai through hawala channels by Javed Chikna while guns were also arranged by him in Mumbai and Surat through his contacts in India. For the first killings - of Mistry and Bangali - accused were paid Rs 5 lakh out of this money.

The accused are: Abid Patel (brother of Dawood's close aide Javed Patel alias Chikna who is based in Pakistan), Saiyed Imran, Zuheb Ansari, Inayat Patel, Mohmad Yunus, Haider Ali, Nissarbhai Sheikh, Mohsin Khan Pathan, Mohmed Altaf Shaikh and Abdul Salim Ghanchi.

"As part of the plan, Javed Chikna (based in Pakistan) and another senior member of D-Company (based in South Africa) Zahid Miyan alias Jao contacted several of their men, including Chikna's brother Abid Patel and Yunus (also called Manjrao), and asked them to prepare a list of such leaders," NIA says. A list of 15 such leaders, mostly local, had already been prepared.

NIA says that the accused persons who had hatred against such Hindu leaders had been identified on the basis of their religion and "they were offered handsome money and jobs in South Africa". When Abid realised that he is likely to be arrested soon, he tried to flee to England but he couldn't do so. "He, then, fled to Nepal along with his close friend Salim Ghanchi by road," said an NIA officer.

Abid, while in Nepal, contacted his brother Chikna in Pakistan who tried to get him out of Nepal but they didn't succeed. Abid and Ghanchi were later arrested on the Indo-Nepal border. NIA has already issued red corner notices against Chikna and Jao.