The worst way to get Dawood?
Times Now has dubbed its telephone conversation with a woman, Mehjabeen Shaikh, who confirmed she was the wife of India's most wanted underworld don Dawood Ibrahim in Karachi, as a 'World Exclusive' and 'The Biggest Newsbreak of the Year'.
There was no doubt the TRPs following this ‘biggest news break' would be closely monitored. Times Now anchor Arnab Goswami also referred to the ‘HT Exclusive’ report by Shishir Gupta in the Hindustan Times' edition of August 22, based on documents in the possession of Indian security agencies, providing details of an April 2015 telephone bill in the name of Dawood's wife with D-13, Block-4, Karachi Development Authority, Sch-5, Clifton, as the installation address.
According to the dossier that Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval wanted to give to Pakistan before talks finally collapsed, Dawood and his family have eight other addresses, including some in Karachi. The HT report, besides giving details of passports, also carried a photo, part of the Doval dossier, of how Dawood looks these days. The photo revealed that the 59-year-old crime lord "has a receding hairline, is clean shaven and has not undergone any facial cosmetic surgery".
The truth is that, despite Pakistan's denial of Dawood's presence and our incumbent government's flip-flop about Dawood's location, the information on him 'staying in Karachi' has been in the public domain for a very long time indeed.
For instance, in November 20, 2000, Outlook magazine ran a cover story on Dawood Ibrahim staying in Karachi and leading a 'kingsize lifestyle' and his 'appetite for women'. Ghulam Hasnain's story not only gave his Karachi address in the upmarket Clifton area, it also gave details of the hospitality that the ISI was offering him, and the errands he had been running for them in return. The story also said that in Dawood's neighbourhood in Clifton "are the houses of his other infamous comrades. One of them is his trusted lieutenant, Chhota Shakeel."
For many years now, the photos of Dawood Ibrahim that most Indians have grown used to seeing in newspaper and magazine pages - as well as on TV - are the ones used in this report and in this as well. Such photos are obviously of a time when Dawood was much younger.
The latest photograph published in HT, if the Indian security agencies are to be believed, is certainly a new take as far as Dawood's latest looks are concerned. According to Times Now's reportage, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said at a press conference thatTimes Now can hand over the ‘evidence’ it has to the Indian government. Times Now can therefore say it is serving the ‘national interest’ by helping to nail Pakistan's lie as far as Dawood Ibrahim's location is concerned.
While a war of words played out in the media in both countries with Pakistan’s National Security Advisor Sartaz Aziz threatening to reveal an anti-India dossier at a press conference at Islamabad, Swaraj, brushing aside the threat, said: "Dossiers yun lahraye nahin jaate. Who lifafe mein band kar ke diye jaate hain (dossiers are serious stuff not meant to be brandished in public, they are passed on in sealed envelopes),"
If that is so, are we to surmise that details of the Doval dossier were shared exclusively with HT by the government itself, to be picked up by the rest of the media? And if that is so, how is the incumbent Narendra Modi government any different from the way the UPA government allegedly adopted a ‘flawed’ Dawood strategy of discussing details with the media? Come to think of it, do ‘media exclusives’, based on 'evidence' with the Indian security and intelligence establishment, run counter to Modi's insistence during the poll campaign as prime ministerial candidate about the need for 'secrecy' to get Dawood Ibrahim?
Modi, pointing to the 'secret' American strategy of taking out Osama bin Laden in Pakistan's Abbottabad, had slammed the UPA government's 'flawed' strategy on Dawood Ibrahim. Modi had blamed the then home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde who had told the media that India was in talks with the American FBI to track down the gangster in Pakistan, thus alerting the fugitive. Modi questioned this and pointed to 'flaws' in the UPA government's strategy and indicated that without an element of surprise, India's most wanted terrorist would remain elusive.
It is obvious and perhaps understandable that against the backdrop of dropped NSA level talks with Pakistan and with India insisting that the talks should only focus on 'terror', the Indian media would lap up any 'fresh angle' on Dawood Ibrahim. But if we assume that the incumbent government has embarked on a 'secret strategy' to get the wanted gangster, do ‘media exclusives’ put the wanted fugitive on further alert and, thus, our national interest in peril?
One might argue that the Karachi angle - both in the Times Now and HT reportage - is nothing new. And what harm can a possible 'latest photograph' of Dawood do? Well, if tomorrow Dawood does actually undergo facial cosmetic surgery, the entire script of the story will change, both for the Indian security and intelligence establishment, as well as for the Modi government.
If it has taken so many years for Dawood's latest photo to appear in the Indian media, it is anybody's guess how difficult things would become if Dawood were to actually undergo cosmetic surgery.
However, there can be another line of counter-argument. And this is that Dawood's trusted lieutenant Chhota Shakeel has himself been interacting recently several times with the Indian media. So aren't 'media exclusives' justified? At least, that way, the Indian public and government get to know the fugitives' thought process? For instance, Shakeel told The Times of India on July 3 in 'an exclusive interview over the phone from Karachi' that Dawood had himself spoken to senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani to return to India after the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.
Jethmalani, asked about this, said he had passed on the information to the then chief minister Sharad Pawar but the Indian government, according to Pawar, turned down the proposal due to the ‘conditions’ raised by Dawood. Shakeel also confirmed that with the help from a defector in the Chhota Rajan gang, he had recently reached Newcastle in Australia to eliminate his rival.
That is not all. Shakeel again spoke to the Indian media recently and, reacting angrily, termed Yakub's Memon's execution as 'illegal murder' and said that there will be 'consequences'.
Given Modi's dislike for the privately owned media, should he not exercise a 'firmer grip' on what information the security and intelligence agencies share with the Indian media, especially where 'national interest' issues like Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel are concerned?