India’s top anti-terror body has announced a ₹ 25-lakh reward for giving information on “global terrorist” Dawood Ibrahim and released a new photo of him. The National Investigation Agency, or NIA, has also placed a bounty of ₹ 20 lakh on Dawood Ibrahim’s lieutenant Chhota Shakeel. Other terrorists Anees Ibrahim, Javed Chikna and Tiger Memon have a bounty of ₹ 15 lakh each.
The NIA in a statement said Dawood Ibrahim and the others are “working in active collaboration with international terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Al Qaeda.
India last year told the UN Security Council that Dawood Ibrahim, who perpetrated the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, and other UN-designated terrorists “unsurprisingly” continue to enjoy “patronage” in a neighbouring country, calling for focused international efforts to address threats posed by one of the most wanted men and terror groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.
“An organised crime syndicate, the D-Company, that used to smuggle gold and counterfeit currencies transformed into a terrorist entity overnight causing a series of bomb blasts in the city of Mumbai in 1993. The attack resulted in the loss of more than 250 innocent lives and damage to property worth millions of dollars,” India said in a statement last year.
Dawood Ibrahim masterminded the 1993 Mumbai blasts in which 12 bombs went off at different locations across the city, killing 257 and leaving over 700 injured. Listed as a global terrorist by a committee of the UN Security Council, Dawood Ibrahim continues to evade arrest and stay in Pakistan.
India’s assertion that he has been sheltered by Pakistan was confirmed in 2018 when the latest list of terror organisations and terrorists released by the UN Security Council included Dawood Ibrahim and his Karachi address.
