Dawood's activities from Pakistan dangerous, UN told

United Nations: In a veiled attack on Pakistan, India has told the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that Dawood Ibrahim's illegitimate activities from a "safe haven" that refuses to acknowledge even his existence pose a real danger. India said that it called for a focussed attention to address the threats by the D-Company, the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Terrorist organisations are increasingly involved in lucrative criminal activities such as trading in natural resources and human trafficking to raise funds, India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said.

Similarly, criminal groups are joining hands with terrorists and are providing services such as counterfeiting, illicit financing, arms dealing, drug trafficking and smuggling terrorists across borders, he said at the Security Council debate on "Threats to International Peace and Security: Linkages between International Terrorism and Organised Crime". "In our own region, we have seen the mutation of Dawood Ibrahim's criminal syndicate into a terrorist network known as the D-Company.

"The D-Company's illegitimate economic activities may be little known outside our region, but for us, such activities as gold smuggling, counterfeit currency, as well as arms and drug trafficking from a safe haven that declines to acknowledge even his existence, are a real and present danger," Akbaruddin said.

He emphasised that the success of a collective action to "denude" the ISIS is a pointer that the UNSC''s "focused attention can and does yield results". "A similar degree of interest in addressing the threats posed by proscribed individuals, such as Dawood Ibrahim and his D-Company, as well as proscribed entities, including the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), listed as affiliates of al-Qaeda, under the 1267 sanctions regime, will serve all of us well," he said.

Pakistan's Foreign Office last week said "Dawood Ibrahim is not in Pakistan", a day after a UK court was informed that the underworld don wanted for the deadly coordinated bombings in Mumbai in 1993 is currently in exile in the country. During the ongoing extradition trial of 51-year-old Jabir Moti, a "high-ranking member of D-Company", Westminster Magistrates' Court in London heard that Dawood is currently in exile in Pakistan.

"The head of D-Company is Dawood Ibrahim, an Indian Muslim currently in exile in Pakistan. Dawood Ibrahim and his brother and top lieutenant, Anis Ibrahim, have been fugitives from India since 1993, when D-Company was implicated in coordinated bombings in Mumbai that killed more than 200 people," according to a US Attorney's affidavit for extradition read out by Jabir Moti's barrister Edward Fitzgerald.