Stubborn Dawood Ibrahim offered me Rs 30K bribe: Ex-cop

DHARWAD: He is India's most wanted man suspected of masterminding the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai and figures third on Forbes' Most Wanted Fugitives list. But for 86-year-old Shanker Sadashiv Vaidhya, a retired police officer from Mumbai, he was just another criminal on the streets of Mumbai whom he arrested in 1981.

Vaidhya who worked for Mumbai police before settling here in Hosayallapur area was the last person who arrested Dawood Ibrahim before he went underground and fled the country.

"In November 1981 I was ACP in charge of Mumbai airport, and Dawood was wanted in an attempt to murder case. I got a tip-off that he would be at the airport. I literally dragged him by his shirt collar when he entered the airport before remanding him to custody," Vaidhya recalled. "He was a stubborn man," he adds.

"At the time he offered me Rs 30,000 as bribe for letting him free, but I stoutly refused. However, to my shock he was released on bail the next day," he claims, sharing his memories of India's most wanted fugitive gangster.

Vaidhya says he saw Dawood grow up as a kid of a hawaldar from Nagapada area. "When I joined Mumbai police as sub-inspector in 1960, my first posting was at Nagapada police station where Dawood lived along with his father, who was a constable. For years he was a small time criminal committing petty crimes," says Vaidya.

He says that by the time he had arrested Dawood at the Mumbai airport, he had gained notoriety in Mumbai's underworld.