Even as former Home Secretary and now BJP leader RK Singh made a sensational claim that a covert operation was planned by the Indian authorities to kill the fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim sometimes back but was compromised by some corrupt Mumbai Police officials, a report has revealed that a senior police inspector had links with the D-company.
The US Embassy in New Delhi had sent a confidential telegram to Washington on August 8, 2005, the title of which was – “Terrorist Dawood Ibrahim haunts India from afar as daughter weds in an American branded hotel.”
The telegram talked of arrest of Vicky Malhotra and Farid Tanasha in Delhi.
At the same time the cable questioned whether the arrests were linked to a plot to eliminate the underworld don.
The sensational part of the cable is when it talks of the then Mumbai Police Commissioner AN Roy firing senior police inspector Aslam Momin.
This was a few days after the arrest of the Chota Rajan gang members.
The American cable says that Momin’s phone records had revealed his links with Dawood and his brothers.
Also as per the cable, the underworld don had used the inspector to tip off the Mumbai police to arrest gangster Vicky Malhotra.
On the other hand the Intelligence Bureau reportedly gave Mumbai police evidence which showed that Momin’s had underworld connections.
The report quoted US cable as follows – The publicly acknowledged link between a police hit man and Ibrahim highlighted the well-known interaction between police and the underworld. Our Indian contacts are perplexed at how Ibrahim could brazenly host such an event.”
Earlier, disclosing details of the highly secret operation in an interview to Aaj Tak news channel, RK Singh had said that it was launched when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the PM and current NSA Ajit Doval was the chief of the IB.
The former home secretary had said that the Indian government had roped in some elements from Dawood’s rival Chhota Rajan’s gang and they were later imparted training at a secret location outside Maharashtra.
However, some Mumbai Police officials who were in regular touch with the D-company landed up at the training camp with arrest warrants for the covert operatives who had been engaged by India, Singh said.
The entire operation to take down Dawood failed due to these rogue elements in Mumbai Police, as per Singh.
