The Hindu : Dubai and deportation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 22, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Dubai and deportation

OF THE TWO developments on the deportation front, the first is truly extraordinary, the second confusing and uncertain. The return of Dawood Ibrahim's brother, Iqbal Kaskar, and gangster Ejaz Pathan from the United Arab Emirates is a major success for a country with a frustrating record of attempts to have criminals returned to India and to justice. As for the claim that Portugal has agreed to hand over mafia don Abu Salem, the fact that his extradition is currently under legal scrutiny suggests his return is neither as certain nor as imminent as the Minister of State for External Affairs declared. The deportation of Kaskar and Pathan appears directly related to the marked change in the attitude of the UAE, whose authorities now seem much more determined to prevent their territory from being misused by the underworld. Pathan is a key accused in the Mumbai bomb blasts case but it is the deportation of Kaskar — Dawood's youngest brother who slipped out of the country in 1992 — that sends out the strongest signal of the UAE's new resolve. As a sibling of the godfather of the so-called D company, Kaskar's arrest and quick deportation is an indication that the Dawood gang, which enjoyed a great deal of clout in Dubai, is now under some kind of squeeze.

Earlier this month, the Dubai police had suddenly swooped down on a large number of gangsters — over 100 according to some estimates — in a massive, unprecedented and carefully coordinated operation conducted in total secrecy. Its real significance lay in the fact that among those picked up were two of Dawood's younger brothers and some of his key aides such as Mohammed Dossa and Aftab Bhakti. It is another matter that most of those arrested were allowed to go; reportedly, some were asked to leave and others deported to Pakistan. But in the context of Dubai's earlier approach with respect to such matters, the fact that they were arrested was much more noteworthy than the fact that they were released. Suddenly, the message was out: Dawood's men could no longer assume that Dubai would tolerate anything they did on its soil.

What has been responsible for the change? At the bottom of Dawood's recent problems in Dubai is the killing of Sharad Shetty, the ringmaster of a betting syndicate in which Dawood had huge financial stakes. Shetty's killing — which was orchestrated by Dawood's rival, Chhota Rajan, in a high-profile club in Dubai and which coincided with the annual shopping festival — sent ripples through the corridors of power. The killing of Shetty seems to have touched a raw nerve in Dubai and has helped to convince authorities that in order to keep its image clean, it is imperative to prevent such incidents from recurring. Pressure from the United States, which has been increasingly worried about the underworld's links with narco-terrorism in the UAE, has also helped in persuading the UAE into taking a much tougher line against D Company.

The question that will be uppermost in many minds, particularly in India, is how far the UAE authorities will go in effecting a cleanup. If the recent crackdown on the Dawood gang is purely a knee-jerk reaction to a shocking murder, a measure to prevent the spilling of more blood, then clearly not very much. However, if it is a part of a larger resolve to stem the criminal and terrorist activities that such gangs commit in other countries, then this could be the beginning of a new phase, one that will have a considerable bearing on India and its attempts to bring terrorists to book. As for the extradition of Abu Salem, his case bears no relation to that of Kaskar and Pathan, being caught up in the complexities of the Portuguese legal process. Whether the MoS for External Affairs, Digvijay Singh, jumped the gun in announcing that Salem would be sent back soon is something that must be asked. India has applied diplomatic pressure to have Salem returned but the real challenge is before the CBI, which has to convince the courts about the gangster's identity and the necessity of bringing him home.

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