By IANS,
New Delhi/Mumbai : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Tuesday approached Saudi Arabian authorities to check the veracity of reports of the arrest in Jeddah of gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s brother Anees Ibrahim, an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts.
“A Red Corner notice issued by the Interpol is in place against Anees. And we have been on a lookout for him since 1993. That is why we have approached Saudi authorities to verify the reports,” a CBI official said.
According to the CBI, the Mumbai serial bomb attacks were engineered by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) with the active help of Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar and Ibrahim Razzak `Tiger’ Memon.
In Mumbai, the police said they have not received confirmation whether Anees was among the three people detained by authorities at Jeddah Airport Tuesday morning as the initial reports from Saudi Arabia suggested.
Mumbai Joint Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria told mediapersons that they were “in touch” with various agencies in New Delhi, including the CBI.
The police also activated their unofficial information channels in a bid to secure accurate details and the Maharashtra Crime Intelligence Department activated its network.
Anees, with a prize of Rs.1 million on his head, is one of the prime accused in the March 12, 1993, Mumbai serial bombings.
His elder brother Iqbal Ibrahim Kaskar was deported from Dubai a couple of years ago to stand trial in some of the cases in which he was wanted.
Anees was also linked to the sensational killing of music baron Gulshan Kumar 10 years ago near a temple in Andheri, a northwest Mumbai suburb.
Another accused in that case is music director Nadeem Saifi, of the Nadeem-Shravan duo. Nadeem allegedly met the Kaskar brothers in Dubai and is said to have hatched a conspiracy to eliminate Gulshan Kumar, the police have said.
Incidentally, it was Maria who in 1993 as a deputy commissioner of police (crime detection), unearthed the Mumbai blasts conspiracy and also played a significant role in cracking the entire case through painstaking investigations.
Anees, who is believed to run his brother Dawood’s mafia syndicate along with the trusted retainer, Chhota Shakeel, was declared proclaimed offender in the Mumbai serial blasts, the trial in which ended last year.
Anees was actively involved in the planning, conspiracy, logistics and final implementation of the serial explosions, ranked among the biggest terror operations in the world.
The serial bombings left 257 dead, 715 injured, several hundreds missing and caused damage worth nearly Rs.300 million to public and private properties.
He is also accused in several cases of murder, attempt to murder, extortion and kidnapping in several states.
Indian investigating agencies could not get their hands on him on two previous occasions. Anees was detained by the Dubai police in 2002, but managed to secure bail and was deported to Pakistan.
Earlier, he was detained by Dubai police in 1996 and later by the Bahrain police but was let off for lack of sufficient evidence against him.