LAHORE: While demanding the extradition of 20 people from Pakistan for their alleged involvement in terrorist activities, the Indian authorities have provided to the Pakistani authorities Interpol Red Corner notices and details of the crimes committed along with their fake names as well as their Pakistani passports and ID card numbers.
According to well placed government sources in Islamabad, the documentary evidence the Indian authorities have provided to Pakistan following the Mumbai attacks included case sheets along with Red Corner notices from Interpol as well as a covering letter seeking request to hand over to India the 20 Most Wanted CBI fugitives. The list of 20 include five alleged hijackers of Indian Airlines’ IC-814 flight, at least half a dozen charge-sheeted accused in the Mumbai blasts case including underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, former Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the now defunct Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar and the Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin. The list also includes five pro Khalistan Sikh leaders from the Indian Punjab who are allegedly plotting to revive militancy in the Indian State of Punjab.
The covering letter carrying the Most Wanted list states that these names have been provided to Pakistan time and again since December 2001 and 15 of these fugitives have Interpol Red Corner notices already issued against them. For the remaining five, states the letter, the Interpol Red Corner notices have already been sought and are being processed. The letter then requests the arrest and extradition of the 20 Most Wanted in accordance with a 1989 agreement between Director General of the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Director General of the Pakistani Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to work together for the arrest of the Most Wanted terrorists and criminals on both sides of the border.
The sources in Islamabad say the FIA-CBI agreement explicitly provides for the FIA in Pakistan and the CBI in India to collaborate with each other to locate and trace out fugitives and hand them over to their respective counterpart without going through awkward time consuming procedures. While adviser to Prime Minister on interior Rahman Malik has stated the other day that India has given a list of three persons – Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, and Masood Azhar – for extradition, well placed sources say the list carries 20 names including those of Hafiz Saeed and Syed Salahuddin. The remaining 15 whose extradition New Delhi has once again sought from Islamabad in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks include Chhota Shakeel, Ayub Memon and Abdul Razzak – all of them Dawood Ibrahim’s close aides and accused of executing the 1993 Mumbai blasts. The list also carries the names of Ibrahim Athar, Zahoor Ibrahim Mistri, Shahid Akhtar Sayed and Azhar Yusuf – considered to be Maulana Masood Azhar’s close associates who had allegedly been involved in the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 from Kathmandu to Kabul in 1999.
The 13th and 14th names on India’s Most Wanted list are that of Abdul Karim and Sagir Sabir Ali Shaikh, both Kashmiri freedom fighters blamed for executing almost 30 bomb blasts in Delhi and parts of northern India in 1996-97 at the behest of Dawood Ibrahim. The remaining five on the Most Wanted list are pro Khalistan Sikh leaders including Wadhawan Singh Babbar, the fugitive chief of Babbar Khalsa International, Ranjit Singh Neeta, chief of Khalistan Zindabad Force, Paramjit Singh Panjwar, chief of Khalistan Commando Force, Lakhbir Singh Rode, chief of International Sikh Youth Federation and Gajinder Singh, the chief of Dal Khalsa. The covering letter carrying documentary evidence against the 20 Most Wanted fugitives concludes by stating that Pakistan’s cooperation in their arrest and extradition could help in further strengthening the confidence building measures between the two countries.
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