"My Conversations With Dawood Ibrahim" continues...

A flustered don fumbled for words for a moment and replied: ‘Dekho Saheb, agar main yeh sab karta na to itni safai se karta ki police ke pass akhkha saboot mere khilaf nahi milta. Aap ye baat samjho. Aap to CBI mein ho. Ek baat aur, mai bhee apnee poori family ko wahan se hata deta jaisa Tiger ne kiya le hai. Meri maa, meri behan sab udhar Bombay mein hee baitha hai,’ (Look Sir, if I had to carry out such an operation, I would have done it with such finesse that the police could never get any evidence against me. You should appreciate this point since you are in the
CBI. And, most importantly, I too would have moved my family members out as Tiger did. My mother and sisters are all there in Bombay) he argued, avoiding my question on RDX.

In brief, what Dawood Ibrahim wanted to convey to me was that Tiger Memon had
approached him (Dawood Ibrahim) ostensibly in connection with his dispute with Haji Ahmed. During the meeting, Tiger had tricked Taklya into getting an impression that he (D) was part of the overall conspiracy behind sending consignments of weapons and explosives. He (D) had not been kept in the picture when the conspiracy was hatched. Had he been involved, he would have executed the plan with much more finesse and moved his family out of Bombay, much like Tiger did.
I knew all along that the alibis being presented by the don were pure wind.
Enough irrefutable evidence existed on our case file nailing his role behind the serial
blasts. But, I played along hoping for, if nothing else, some information from him on
other absconding members of his gang or the ISI. With Manish Lala’s persuasive skills to support me, a slim chance of convincing Dawood to return always remained.

To be continued...