Mumbai cops disrupted 'kill Dawood' plan in 2005: R K Singh

NEW DELHI: In a significant disclosure, former Union home secretary R K Singh has said that Indian intelligence agencies had to abort a covert operation they had planned to take out fugitive underworld don and mastermind of Mumbai serial blasts Dawood Ibrahim.

In an interview to a news channel, Singh said the plan, prepared by national security advisor A K Doval when he headed the Intelligence Bureau under the Vajpayee government, involved using members of the rival underworld gang led by Chhota Rajan to target Dawood when he was set to travel to Dubai for the wedding of his daughter in 2005. However, the plot was disrupted by a posse of Mumbai cops who mysteriously emerged in Delhi to arrest Rajan's accomplice Vicky Malhotra and Fareed Tanasha.

Malhotra and Tanasha had travelled to Delhi to work out details of the plan.

The claim has shone fresh spotlight on Dawood's links with sections of Mumbai cops, one of the factors why he came to be known as the "uncrowned king" of the city. It has rekindled suspicions about the manner in which Mumbai cops landed in New Delhi to enlist the help of Delhi Police ostensibly to execute arrest warrants pending against members of Chhota Rajan gang.

The claim is significant also because of the timing: it comes at a time when evidence has emerged that Doval's interest in the leader of the notorious crime syndicate may not have waned even after a decade he spent outside the government following his superannuation.

Last week, Indian agencies responded to claims of Pakistani officials here that they had got dossiers showing complicity of Indian agencies in Baluchistan insurgency by releasing a fresh photograph of the ageing don. So far, Indian agencies have used an old photograph - one which was taken in 1993 - in all the dossiers submitted to Pakistan to claim that the fugitive was being sheltered by the hostile neighbour, and to demand his return. The image of the ageing don with a receding hairline showed that Indian agencies have been tracking him with considerable success.

The dossier which Doval had planned to submit to his Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz had the latter not cried off from his engagement in Delhi, included the will that Dawood has prepared, bequeathing his property to his wife Mehzabeen, as well as the precise coordinates of the house Dawood bought next to a hospital in Karachi.

Dawood's infiltration of Mumbai Police has been part of the lore that has developed around him. A few years ago, Wikileaks disclosed that a senior inspector with Mumbai Police had to be cashiered because of his links with the don.