"My Conversations With Dawood Ibrahim" continues...

In the interest of security, the Special Designated Court was created within the jail premises itself to obviate the risk involved in taking large number of accused from prison to court on a daily basis.
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Since the STF, CBI, was put in charge of further investigation of the serial blasts, I visited the Court on different occasions when important matters came up before it.
Aware that Manish Lala was lodged in Arthur Road Jail itself, I decided to meet him in prison in the first week of June 1994. Aafter obtaining due clearances, my meeting with D’s confidant and legal advisor took place in Jail Superintendent’s office. I found Manish to be well-spoken, suave
and most unlike the other five members of D-company whom we had dealt with in July, 1993.
Towards the end of my brief questioning, he asked me to seek his remand in the TADA case
against Subhash Singh Thakur, Bhai Thakur et al for a longer interrogation session. He said he
would not oppose CBI’s remand application and would agree to be brought to Delhi. This sounded odd but he was persistent.

Sure enough, subsequently when we applied for his custody, we got it without any difficulty as there was no opposition from his side. He was brought to Delhi and his interrogation began. One day I asked my Investigating Officer to bring him to my office. My first question to him was why he had volunteered to be taken in custody in a TADA case unnecessarily. Even though he was mentioned by other accused, he was legally not wanted by us in that case. Even after twenty years in the Indian Police Service, I wasn’t prepared for the unusual response that came my way. He said ‘Sir, when I came to meet you in Arthur Road Jail, you offered me a chair and asked me to sit down. I have been to several police offices and met many police officers in the course of my work but never has any one asked me to sit, leave alone take a chair.

To be continued...