Dawood wanted freedom in 'surrender': Pawar

Amid news reports that Dawood Ibrahim, one of the key conspirators behind the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, had offered to surrender to the Indian authorities in the nineties, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Saturday said that though the underworld don had offered to surrender, but had placed a condition that he should not be arrested on his return to the country.

Reacting to a statement by noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani that Dawood had offered to surrender and return to India to face trial in the cases against him, Pawar said, “It is true that Ram Jethmalani had given a proposal about Dawood’s willingness to return to India. But there was a condition that Dawood should not be kept in jail, but be allowed to remain in a house. This was not acceptable. We said he had to face the law on his return.”

Jethmalani’s statement about the underworld don’s offer of surrender made to him in the 90s accompanied an interview with underworld gangster and Dawood’s trusted aide Chhota Shakeel was published by a national daily.Jethmalani, who was merely reiterating what he had said many times over in the past, said that Shakeel had contacted him while in london in the nineties. He recalled that Shakeel had told him that he and Dawood were prepared to surrender, but he wanted an assurance from the Indian Government that they would be kept under house arrest.

Jethmalani said that he had written to then Chief Minister of Maharashtra Sharad Pawar, who had told him that the State Government could not guarantee relaxations sought by Shakeel.Reacting to the controversy over Dawood’s purported offer of returning to India, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said that conditional surrender is not allowed. “If he (Dawood) wanted to surrender, he should have come before police,” he said.

The Mumbai serial blasts were the worst-ever crime perpetrated in Independent India by Dawood and his aides. In all, 257 people were killed, 713 others injured, while property worth `27 crore was destroyed in coordinated attacks on a dozen places across Mumbai on March 12, 1993.Dawood was one of the three prime conspirators behind the blasts, the other two being Tiger Memon and Abu Salem. He is in fact one of the 30-odd absconding accused in the March 12, 1993, serial blasts. The other major absconding accused are Tiger Memon, Ayub Memon and Anees Ibrahim.

Salem, once a close aide of Pakistan-based underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, was extradited to India from Portugal along with his girlfriend Monica Bedi on November 11, 2005. Salem is being tried in the second phase of the Mumbai serial blasts trial.A major judicial finding has established for the first time the role of Dawood in the 1993 blasts and a designated TADA. court had on September 22 convicted landing agent Dawood Mohammed Phanse, alias Dawood Taklya (82), for indulging in various serious crimes, including aiding and abetting a terror act and attending a blast conspiracy meeting organised by the underworld don in Dubai in January 1993.

Judge PD Kode had nailed Phanse for, among other things, attending a blast conspiracy meeting organised by Dawood Ibrahim and blast mastermind Tiger Memon ( both absconding accused) in Dubai on January 19,1993.At the Dubai meeting, Phanse had agreed to receive the consignments of explosives, arms and ammunition arriving at the Shekhadi coast from Pakistan. Accordingly, Phanse along with Parkar and others received consignments of RDX, rifles and cartridges along the Shekhadi coast in Raigad district on February 3 and 7, 1993. Parkar had by then held a meeting of customs officials to ensure smooth landing of explosives, arms and ammunition along the Shekhadi coast.

The court went by Phanse’s confessional statement made voluntarily in the initial phase of the investigations that he had gone to Dubai to attend the blast conspiracy meeting convened by Dawood Ibrahim and the role played by him in the landing of explosives, arms and ammunition.Phanse and Parkar were named by an approver and identified later by prosecution witnesses during an identification parade held in the court.

The 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blast trial is one of the elaborate and prolonged trials held in Indian legal history. The evidence in fact runs into more than 13,000 pages, which include over 4,000 pages of exhibits. Statements made by the accused persons run into 6,000 pages.The trial went on for over 14 years --- and it is even bigger than the Nuremberg trial. After the trial, Judge PD Kode convicted 100 accused of the 123 who faced the trial. Of the convicted, 12 were sentenced to death, while 20 were handed out life sentences.