Anees Ibrahim's arrest

A FEW hours after Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani announced that mafia baron Anees Ibrahim Kaskar had been arrested in Dubai, a special court in Mumbai concluded the trial of the 122 people accused of having engineered the 1993 serial bombings in Mumbai. The trial had run for almost seven years, something of a world record. Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) Judge P.D. Kode will now have to study an estimated 42,000 pages of documents, including the statements of 684 prosecution witnesses, the testimonies of the accused, as well as the dictionary-sized written submissions of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and defence lawyers. Indian law does not allow for the trial of suspects in their absence, and if the United Arab Emirates (UAE) now agrees to extradite or deport Anees Ibrahim, he will have to stand trial separately for his central role in that tragic event.

(Interestingly, Khaleej Times reported on December 14, quoting UAE security sources, that Anees Ibrahim had been deported to Pakistan. On December 13 there were unconfirmed reports that Anees Ibrahim was granted bail in Dubai. But sources in the CBI said the agency had received no communication from the UAE authorities in this regard.)

Anees Ibrahim's arrest has particular significance in the context of the welter of low-intensity terrorist attacks that preceded the 10th anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The Mumbai bombings remain the worst of the terrorist attacks intended to avenge the outrage and the mass killings of Muslims that followed. As many as 257 people died in the bombings, and another 713 were injured. Public property worth Rs.270 million was destroyed as bombs went off at the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Air-India Building, the Sea Rock Hotel, the Juhu Centaur Hotel, the Airport Centaur Hotel and busy commercial areas such as Zaveri Bazaar, Century Bazaar and Katha Bazaar. Bombs also went off near the Shiv Sena Bhawan in Dadar and at the Plaza Theatre, while hand-grenades were thrown at the Sahar International Airport and at the Fishermen's Colony in communally fragile Mahim. CBI investigators concluded that the attacks had been engineered by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), with the aid of Anees Ibrahim's brother and boss, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, along with Ibrahim Razzak `Tiger' Memon.

What was significant about the bombings was that they were carried out not by Islamist terrorists, but by a freewheeling criminal enterprise that for decades had paid no attention to communal issues. Associates describe Anees Ibrahim as a soft-spoken if ruthless businessman, not a religious bigot. In the 1970s, his brother built up Mumbai's largest gold and silver smuggling operation. Aided by a liberal bail regime, Dawood Ibrahim had little to fear from the law. Rival gangs were, however, on his heels, and the `D-Company' baron left for Dubai in 1984. Anees Ibrahim, who joined the gang after the killing of elder brother Shabbir Ibrahim in a mafia war, was left in charge of running the outfit. Many of its most brutal operatives, such as `Chhota' Shakeel Ahmad Babu, Rajendra Nikhalje and Sunil `Sawtya' Sawant, were his recruits. In 1986, Anees Ibrahim was arrested on an Arms Act charge, but he managed to get bail within weeks. After this, he spent much of his time building up the network's overground assets, investing heavily in Mumbai real estate and businesses.

Many CBI investigators believe that Dawood Ibrahim himself was unwilling to participate in the serial bombings but was pressured by his lieutenants in India, who in turn were under intense pressure from the riot-hit Muslim community in Mumbai. Like other gang members, Anees Ibrahim fled to Pakistan after the bombings, flying on fake travel documents provided by the gang's bases in the UAE. By the mid-1990s, however, he was again running the D-Company's business affairs, most of them centred in the UAE. In essence, Anees Ibrahim presided over the organisation's withdrawal from the gold and silver smuggling business, rendered worthless by fiscal reforms in India, and its diversification into narcotics, contract killings and money laundering. Anees Ibrahim himself funnelled part of the proceeds into legitimate business, like Fire Gutkha in Pakistan or East-West Airlines in India. Another brother, Iqbal Ibrahim, is believed to have run a similar operation out of Hong Kong, based on stock market investments.

Anees Ibrahim's renewed activities, however, soon brought him into conflict with the authorities in the UAE. In 1996, he was briefly arrested on a narcotics-related charge. Again, in 1997, he was detained for the murder of rival mafioso Irfan Goga on the basis of allegations made by the killed gangster's wife. Ironically enough, his connections in the religious Right in Pakistan are believed to have helped on both occasions to get him out of jail. Although the hard-drinking, fast-living D-Company could not have been further in character from the pious, Anees Ibrahim's role in the serial bombings had finally paid off. It was also, however, to be his demise. Informed sources told Frontline that the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had been keen to question Anees Ibrahim in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in Mombasa, Kenya, after which several Pakistan nationals had been detained. That made it more or less impossible for his friends in the UAE to arrange a quiet return for him to Pakistan. One-time Gujarat-based gangster and long-term Dawood Ibrahim associate Haji Ismail owns homes and businesses in Mombasa, including a ship that operates between Somalia and the UAE. The group is also believed to have interests in Kenya-based smuggling operations. In September 1997, a Nairobi court had begun the trial of Madat Ali Chatur, a D-Company aide, for customs fraud.

The Mumbai Police have obtained a non-bailable arrest warrant against Anees which they will forward to the Interpol in order that it be handed over to the UAE government. The open-dated warrant was issued by the special court in Mumbai.

Authorities in the UAE, for their part, have become increasingly unsympathetic to the affluent and well-connected mafia figures who have for long flourished in their freewheeling financial centres. Pressure from the U.S., as well as the fear that terrorism will one day rebound on the Emirates, seem to have provoked the about-turn. Earlier this year, the UAE deported Aftab Ansari, a key mafia figure wanted, among other things, for the terrorist attack on the American Centre in Kolkata. Ansari was closely linked to top terrorist Syed Omar Sheikh, the killer of American journalist Daniel Pearl who had been released from Tihar Jail as part of the IC-814 hostages-for-prisoners swap. Ansari's involvement in terrorist activities in India had been detected when a truck carrying explosives was interdicted near Santhalpur in Patan, Gujarat, on October 26, 2001. Ansari subsequently carried out the kidnapping of Rajkot businessman Bhaskar Parekh, and, after securing a Rs.40 million ransom, went on to carry out the Kolkata killings in January 2002.

Interestingly, Anees Ibrahim's arrest has come at a time when Pakistan's intelligence network is again seeking to use the underworld for communal terrorism. While elements of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and other organisations have been able to set up cells for this purpose across India, they simply do not have the massive infrastructure and cross-communal reach needed for truly large operations. Only this May, the UAE had deported Bangalore mafioso Muthappa Rai, who is believed to have undertaken a contract for executing bombings to retaliate against the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat. In March, with the riots at their peak, the Intelligence Bureau had issued warnings that Anees Ibrahim had flown to Dubai from Karachi on March 3 to plan the contours of the attack. Memon, as well as aides Saleem Ghazi and Aziz Tunga, were present at the meeting.

Funds for Rai, informed sources say, were to have been funnelled through the al-Maz Money Exchange Bureau in Dubai, while local cadre for the actual explosions were to have been provided by Haji Ismail. Before his departure for Dubai, Ismail had used his formidable contacts in the port town of Jam Saliya to handle landings of contraband for the Dawood Ibrahim mafia.