BOMBAY, 13 July 2005 — Has the marriage of Indian underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s daughter Mahrukh with former Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad’s son Junaid already been solemnized? Yes, say Indian federal intelligence agencies. Dawood’s uncle Ahmed Ali Kaskar also told the Indian Express that the wedding took place July 8 and that he had been receiving congratulatory messages from friends and relatives since then.
Ahmed wished the couple well and told the paper that Dawood would have wanted the wedding to take place at Musafirkhana in Bombay, where the family traditionally arranges all their weddings.
Ahmed said he had been denied a passport and was under constant police surveillance. The passport office in Bombay has also turned down a request from Haseena Parker, the eldest sister of Dawood, for a new passport, barring her attendance at the wedding reception. Her lawyer, Keswani, said she would approach the Bombay High Court in this matter.
The Times of India quoted Indian federal intelligence agencies as saying the marriage of Junaid and Mahrukh took place in a mosque in a Gulf country last Friday. Dawood was absent at the ceremony as he was under surveillance by intelligence agencies of India and the United States. He also faces a threat to his life from archrival Chhota Rajan.
Intelligence agencies have said they would keep a close watch on people attending the wedding reception in Dubai on July 23. Airport police and intelligence agencies in India have prepared a watch list and will keep track of those attending the reception.
A large number of businessmen and close friends of Dawood from all over the world, but mostly from the Gulf, are likely to attend the reception, although many Indians and non-resident Indians will skip it fearing reprisal and trouble from police.
Asked if his Indian cricketer and film star friends would attend the reception, Miandad told a television network on Monday that it was his duty to invite his friends and he had done it. “The ball is now in their courts and it is for them to decide” he said. Asked if he would also invite Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, whom he met last year, Miandad said, “ Yes, I would invite him.”
Chhota Rajan, bete noire of Dawood now holed up in Malaysia, has said he will also keep an eye on those attending the wedding. Indian intelligence agencies have reportedly used Rajan’s gang to weaken Dawood’s that employs over 3,000 people throughout the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East.
Despite its best efforts, New Delhi has been unable to get Dawood extradited to India on charges of masterminding the Bombay bomb blasts in 1993 in which nearly 200 people lost their lives.
Meanwhile, Rajan’s hit man, Vicky Malhotra, was arrested Monday by the Bombay police in New Delhi. The hit man was arrested while in the company of a former director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The former official, who was not named in a report published in a leading newspaper, was said to have taken offense at the action of the Bombay police and insisted on verifying their identity cards. He even tried to resist the arrest of Malhotra who is wanted in several cases of murder. The former IB director was not arrested and allowed to go after he called someone from his mobile phone. The accused told the police that he had arrived in New Delhi on the invitation of the former IB director, with whom he had breakfast. Malhotra also told police that his boss Chhota Rajan knew about his meeting with the former official.
The meeting between the hit man and a top former intelligence official has raised speculation in the media about the possibility of the government planning to raid the wedding reception with the help of Chhota Rajan.
