Mumbai police team knew of operation on Dawood Ibrahim's life: Officers

It's finally come from the horse's mouth, that the 2005 covert operation against underworld don Dawood Ibrahim was "deliberately botched up".

Officers in the Mumbai police have alleged that the team that had picked up Chhota Rajan's men from Delhi was well aware that they had been roped in by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) for the secret mission to kill Dawood, and that the police claim of the men being arrested because they were wanted was false.

Former union home secretary and now senior BJP leader RK Singh's recent revelation — that a few "corrupt" officers of the Mumbai police had led to the botch-up of the covert operation launched by the AB Vajpayee government to take down the global terrorist in Dubai — has for the first time brought on record the speculated Mumbai police and D-Company nexus.

The former bureaucrat for the first time went on record to say that the government had roped in rival gangster Rajan's men for the job, who were trained at a secret location outside Maharashtra. But Mumbai police officers, who were in touch with D-Company, landed up in Delhi, while the operation was going on, with arrest warrants for the men.

A senior officer, who was part of the Mumbai police in 2005, narrated the operation to dna.

In July 2005, Dawood's daughter was to get married to Junaid, son of former Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad. The reception was planned on July 23 in a five-star hotel in Dubai and Indian intelligence agencies took this as an opportunity to get hold of the don.

"On July 11, 2005, a team of Mumbai police officers, including a senior officer, stopped an Ambassador car in Delhi in which Rajan's close associate Vicky Malhotra was travelling with former IB chief Ajit Doval. He kept on telling the police team not to take Malhotra, but the officers were adamant, saying the man was wanted by the police and was involved in numerous crimes, including murder, extortion and arms smuggling," said the officer.

He added that Malhotra, Farid Tanasha and three others were being trained by the IB for the covert operation.

Malhotra and Tanasha were picked for the job as they were trained shooters and had earlier made attempts on Dawood's life in Pakistan. The covert operation team was also ready to die in the combat, sources said.
"It was alleged that the D-Company got wind of this operation and used its contacts in the police department to stop it," said the officer.

Another officer, on the condition of anonymity, said that for such a covert operation the police do require underworld's help. "No policeman or government officer can get involved in such an operation on foreign land. The police and agencies require those who have expertise and are not likely to land anyone in trouble. Hence, the best choice has been rival gangsters," he added.

Past instances of alleged Mumbai police-underworld links
2008: Encounter specialist and former head of the Crime Investigation Unit of the city police senior inspector Pradeep Sharma, who has 112 encounters to his name, was dismissed from the force for his alleged connections with the underworld. Then Mumbai police commissioner Hasan Gafoor had said that a probe had found Sharma's past records undesirable.
Sharma, a 1983 batch Maharashtra Public Service Commission officer, had killed criminals from various gangs, including those belonging to Dawood Ibrahim, Chhota Shakeel, Chhota Rajan and Amar Naik. Sharma had refuted all allegations against him and had also moved the Maharashtra Tribunal Act, challenging his dismissal.

2005: Senior police officer Aslam Momin, also a 1983 batch officer, was dismissed for his alleged links with the underworld. Momin, who has 34 encounters to his credit, had served as a sub-inspector in Mumbai for most part of his career. Then Mumbai police commissioner AN Roy had given Momin the marching orders for his alleged nexus with Dawood's brother Iqbal Kaskar, an accused in the Sara-Sahara shopping centre case. It is alleged that Momin reportedly asked Dawood's right-hand man Chhota Shakeel to tell Kaskar that if he surrendered, it would be ensured that he would not be harmed. It is believed that this convinced Kaskar to eventually surrender. Momin's cell phone was said to be tapped by the IB after it suspected that he had links with the underworld.

1999: Then police commissioner Ronnie Mendonca had forwarded a report to then state director general of police Arvind Inamdar about 17 officers having links with the underworld. Inamdar had taken cognisance of the report and taken action by posting the officers all over the state.