Is Chhota Shakeel, Dawood Ibrahim’s trusted aide, dead? Some media reports claims so; read full details

Mumbai: If the recent media reports are to be believed Chhota Shakeel, the trusted lieutenant of Dawood Ibrahim, may be dead. According to a national daily Hindustan Times, Chhota Shakeel is dead.

Hindustan Times has claimed that they are in possession of an audio clip of a conversation between a member of Shakeel’s gang, Bilal and a relative of Shakeel. However, Hindustan Times couldn’t authenticate it, nor has it managed to get any confirmation about the same from National Security Council Secretariat in Delhi and Mumbai Police.

The newspaper has claimed that Shakeel died on January 6 in Islamabad, while he was in a meeting with members of Odessa. There are two versions of how he died. One, where he suffered a heart attack and was rushed to Combined Medical Hospital in Rawalpindi by air. He was declared brought dead. Second, where ISI used Odessa to kill Shakeel as he was becoming difficult to handle.

His dead body was kept in the morgue for two days and then flown to Karachi and later buried in an unmarked grave in the Defence Housing Authority graveyard. The newspaper also claims that Shakeel’s second wife Ayesha, and other members of his family, who lived with him at D-48, 15th Lane, Khayaban-Seher, DHA Colony were moved to another ISI safe house in Lahore.

Dawood was informed of Shakeel’s death a couple of day later. ISI wants to keep Shakeel’s death a secret because they want to continue to use his virtual presence to broker deals. Shakeel had trained a Pakistani national called Rahim Merchant, how to impersonate him.

After hearing the news of Shakeel’s death, Dawood was depressed and as a result he had to be moved to a hospital in late January and also in March. There are talks that having lost a trusted aide Dawood is contemplating a return to India.

In recent times, there were reports that Shakeel had split away from Dawood. Now, according to Hindustan Times report, Shakeel’s aides Bilal, Mohammed Rashid, Iqbal Salim, Yusuf Raja, and Parvez Khawaja, all Pakistani nationals, have broken from Dawood’s D-company.