New Delhi: Amid conflicting reports about the detention of Dawood Ibrahim by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and his injury in a shootout during a gambling brawl at a Karachi hotel, the Pakistan Government and some of Dawood's close relatives in Pakistan have claimed that the underworld don is not in Pakistan at present.
“Woh khairiat se hain, jahan bhi hain (He is well, where ever he is),” Javed Miandad, former captain of the Pakistan cricket team and Dawood's relative, said on Tuesday. Miandad claimed that Dawood was not in Pakistan. "Woh yahan nahi hain, lekin jahan bhi hain theek thaak hain (He isn't here, but he is fit and fine where ever he is),” he told an Indian newspaper.
Islamabad stuck to its known stand that Dawood Ibrahim does not live in its soil and denied that reports of his arrest by the ISI in Quetta.
"Nobody by the name Dawood Ibrahim has been arrested by the security forces," Pakistan Interior Ministry spokesperson Brig(retd) Iqbal Cheema told a media briefing on Tuesday while responding to a question on the whereabouts of the don.
On Tuesday, newspaper reports in India claimed that Dawood had been taken into custody by the ISI along with his trusted lieutenant Chhota Shakeel and the 1993 Mumbai blasts mastermind Tiger Memon.
The reports claimed that the trio was rounded up last Thursday from their hideout near the Pak-Afghan border. The three are currently being held at a safe-house on the outskirts of Quetta, they say.
"He is not in Pakistan and there is no truth in reports of his arrest in Quetta," Cheema said. "There is nobody by that name who has been arrested by anybody here. We have reasons to believe he is not in this country. There is absolutely no credence, no truth to the report. We do not know where this report has come from," he said.
Even the Indian intelligence agencies denied these reports. They, however, claimed that the don was injured in a gambling brawl on Monday. The underworld don, India's most wanted fugitive, was shot in his left leg when a scuffle broke out between him and his fellow gamblers — Firoz Gitto, Firoz Dausa and Black Prince.
The incident took place in the penthouse of Regent Crown Plaza Hotel in Karachi. The hotel belongs to infamous gambler Firrazudin Baweza.
The Pakistani Interior Ministry spokesperson claimed that if anyone had any evidence of his presence in Pakistan, "we would welcome that. But he is an Indian national, the UN lists him as an Indian, and he should be looked for in India. As far as my knowledge goes, he is not in Pakistan," he said.
Before the reports of injury as well as his detention came in public domain, there were reports about US pressure on Pakistan to arrest Dawood, who has been declared wanted by Washington for his involvement in narcotics smuggling and links with al-Qaeda related Islamist extremist groups.
The FBI and the US Drug Enforcement Authority, (DEA) had earlier approached the ISI, the Federal Investigation Agency FIA) and the Anti-Narcotic Force (ANF) of Pakistan to locate the whereabouts of Dawood.
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