Mumbai raids: NIA identifies 21 ‘associates’ of don Dawood Ibrahim for questioning

Meanwhile, an NIA team is in Mohali to inspect the site of the rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack on Monday at the Punjab Police Intelligence headquarters.

The NIA had on Monday carried out searches at 29 premises in and around Mumbai, which are suspected to be linked with Ibrahim’s associates and a few hawala operators. The central agency detained six alleged associates of Dawood, including Salim Fruit and Guddu Pathan, for questioning. NIA sources said the agency has recovered a significant amount of evidence during the Monday raids.

“Searches were carried out at 29 locations and 21 people have been identified for questioning,” an NIA officer said.

On Monday, an NIA officer had said, “While searches at 24 places were conducted by the central agency in Mumbai, searches in five places were carried out in the Mira-Bhayandar area near Mumbai on suspected associates of Dawood Ibrahim. During the searches, various incriminating materials, including electronic devices, documents of investments in real estate transactions, cash and firearms were seized.”

The searches, which began in the morning and continued till late night, were conducted in Bhendi Bazar, Nagpada, Mahim, Bandra, Goregaon, Mumbra, Borivali and Santacruz in Mumbai.

The NIA detained six persons, including Salim Qureshi alias Salim Fruit, the brother-in-law of gangster Chhota Shakeel; Suhail Khandwani, the managing trustee of Mahim Dargah and Haji Ali Dargah; a film producer who was arrested in connection with the 1993 Mumbai bomb blast case; Guddu Pathan, the alleged henchman of Dawood; Sameer Hingora and Abdul Qayyum after searching their premises.

It searched the residence of Salim Fruit in Bhendi Bazar, Hingora’s residence in Bandra, Pathan’s Byculla residence and the house of bookie-turned-builder Ajay Gosalia in Borivali. The NIA teams also searched Khandwani’s office in Mahim and questioned a number of people, including builder Aslam Soratia and beef exporter Fareed Qureshi, officers said. Salim Fruit was also questioned by the ED in February.

Some people residing in Bandra and Mahim were also questioned. “The agency is questioning people who are suspected to be linked with Dawood Ibrahim,” said an officer.

He added that searches were being conducted in connection with a suo motu case registered by the NIA in February, pertaining to the international terrorist network of D-Company involving Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar and his associates, including Anees Ibrahim Shaikh, Chhota Shakeel, Javed Chikna and Tiger Memon, who have been accused of indulging in arms smuggling, narco-terrorism, money laundering and circulation of fake Indian currency notes.

The officer claimed that Dawood and his associates have unauthorised possessions and are involved in the acquisition of key assets to raise terror funds. They are also working in active collaboration with international terrorist organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Al Qaeda, the officer added.