As Pakistan is making all-out efforts to prevent the extradition of Jabir Motiwala, a high-ranking member of the D-Company from the United Kingdom, it has been revealed that Dawood Ibrahim is hiding in Pakistan.
A photograph of Dawood Ibrahim with Motiwala is going viral which clearly indicates that the underworld don is in good health.
The US is trying to extradite Motiwala, Dawood's close aide, over charges of money laundering.
While reacting on the recent developments, Lawrence Sellin, a US Army veteran and security expert tweeted, "Fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim is believed to be a key facilitator in Pakist Inter-Service Intelligence's narco-terrorist-jihadi operations and linked to the Dehiwala Sri Lankan drug distribution centre and possible funder of the Easter bombings."
An underworld criminal and terrorist, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar is accused of the 1993 Mumbai bombings in which 257 people were killed and hundreds were injured. India has asked Pakistan several times to hand over Dawood Ibrahim.
Recently, the official spokesperson of the Minister of External Affairs (MEA) Raveesh Kumar said that the presence of Dawood in Pakistan is not a secret.
"The location of Dawood Ibrahim is not a secret. Time and again, for the last several years, we have presented to Pakistan a list of people who are there in their country. We have asked repeatedly that he should be handed over," Kumar said while addressing the media.
"He is a UN-proscribed terrorist. His imprint on the Mumbai blast is clean for all of us and frankly many people from the media fraternity have managed to speak to him and I think it is very clean that linkages are in Pakistan," he added.
The United States also confirms that Dawood is hiding in Pakistan. On the extradition trial of Jabir Motiwala at Westminster magistrates' court in London, John Hardy QC, representing the US government said, "The FBI in New York is investigating the D-Company which is based in Pakistan, India and the UAE."
"The head is Dawood Ibrahim, an Indian Muslim living in exile in Pakistan. He and his brother have been fugitives from India since 1993 and in the past 10 years, D-Company operatives have conducted operations in the US, especially money laundering and extortion. The FBI investigation has revealed Motiwala reports directly to Dawood and extortion, debt collection and money laundering are his main jobs," Hardy said.
( With inputs from ANI )