Pakistan gives Dawood new passport, ID

MUMBAI: The don is on the run again, thanks to pressure from Uncle Sam and several international anti-terror agencies.

With the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) asking Pakistan to hand the fugitive over to them for investigating his links to al-Qaeda and the narcotics trade, Dawood has been given a new identity and passport and sent to a safe haven in a central Asian Islamic country.

According to intelligence sources, the Pakistani authorities, when asked about Dawood, said no one by that name was in Pakistan.

Dawood is also wanted in India in connection with the 1993 blasts, and several other cases.

The American request to Pakistan was made in mid-April. Fearing a US backlash, Dawood’s mentors in Pakistan reportedly put him on a flight to Kazakhstan, where the don has several business interests, including mining and petroleum products.

Former CBI director Joginder Singh told DNA on Monday that whenever they demanded that Dawood be handed over, the Pakistani authorities refused to admit that he was staying in Karachi.

“It is very easy to grow a beard or shave it off and get a new Pakistani passport under an assumed name and travel to a new destination,” said Singh, when asked if he could now be in another country.

“Dawood has been declared an international terrorist by the UN for his links with the Afghan militants and documented support to the fundamentalist regime in Iran,” Singh added.

The Pakistani regime under Pervez Musharraf has a tacit understanding with the US under which the details of all passengers leaving and entering Pakistan are provided.

“So the Pakistani authorities had no choice but to provide Dawood with a new identity and documents,” says a senior intelligence officer.

Sources in Pakistan and London confirmed that Dawood had left Pakistan in April for Kazakhstan and packed his wife and children off to London, where he has a plush house.