The Hindu : Front Page : Pakistan denies Dawood’s presence, arrest

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 08, 2007
ePaper

Front Page

Front Page

Pakistan denies Dawood’s presence, arrest

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday categorically denied the presence of Dawood Ibrahim, wanted in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, and rejected reports on Indian television of his involvement in a shootout in Karachi and another report in an Indian newspaper of his arrest by the Inter-Services Intelligence.

“There is nobody by that name who has been arrested by anybody here. We have reasons to believe he is not in this country. There is absolutely no credence, no truth to the report. We do not know where this report has come from,” said Interior Ministry spokesperson Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema.

Dismissing reports of the underworld don being injured in a shootout in a Karachi hotel, he said a violent incident in the middle of Pakistan’s biggest city could not be kept under wraps.

High-security blanket

President Pervez Musharraf has been in Karachi since Sunday, and the entire city is under a high-security blanket. “If such an incident had taken place in a hotel, it would have been known to the whole world by now. Such a thing is not possible,” said Brigadier Cheema.

New Delhi believes Dawood, who figures on a list of the “most wanted” that India has given to Pakistan, lives in Karachi. He is also on the United Nations terror list. But Pakistan has always maintained that no person of that name lives anywhere in this country.

Brigadier Cheema reiterated that position when asked about another report in a Pakistani daily last week that Islamabad was under pressure from the United States to arrest him.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page