The foiled 2005 plan to eliminate underworld don Dawood Ibrahim in Dubai, led by Ajit Doval, was a result of a lack of coordination between the agencies, says IPS officer Meera Borwankar.
A botched plan to eliminate the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim in Dubai has been considered one of the infamous chapters of the history of Indian intelligence agencies. It was long alleged that a few loyalists of Dawood within the Mumbai Police foiled the secret operation planned by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) during the tenure of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Now, former Indian Police Service officer Meera Borwankar has claimed that it was a simple case of a lack of coordination and wrong to accuse the Mumbai Police.
In an exclusive interview with India Today in 2015, former Home Secretary and BJP leader RK Singh blew the lid off one of the most infamous chapters in India’s counter-terrorism efforts. RK Singh revealed, “An operation to eliminate Dawood Ibrahim was being planned before it was blown by the actions of some Mumbai cops. Ajit Doval was involved in the operation.”
In 2005, news broke that Dawood Ibrahim’s daughter Mahrukh was to marry Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad’s son Junaid. As soon as Indian intelligence agencies got wind of Dawood’s plan to marry his daughter, a plan was hatched to eliminate the underworld don in Dubai. Agencies engaged Chota Rajan’s men to execute plan and Ajit Doval was leading the operation. Rajan deputed two of his most trusted sharpshooters, Vicky Malhotra and Farid Tanasha.
At the same time, Borwankar’s Mumbai Police team was planning to arrest Malhotra and Tanasha. After they traced Rajan’s gang members’ presence in Mumbai, a team under Deputy Commissioner Dhananjay Kamlakar was dispatched to Delhi.
Doval was briefing Malhotra and Tanasha in a hotel when the Mumbai Police team appeared there and arrested them, forcing Doval to abort the plan to execute Dawood Ibrahim.
In an interview with Mumbai Tak on Sunday, Borwankar explained it as a “simple case of a lack of coordination between both agencies” and said it is “completely wrong to accuse the Mumbai Police of working for Dawood Ibrahim.”
“We kept intercepting criminal phone calls. This happened in 2005. At that time, in Mumbai, top businessmen were receiving extortion calls from the underworld, and the environment was not good. We intercepted calls, and the operation was termed as project X. We intercepted this call and found Vicky Malhotra, and he was speaking to someone on the phone calling him ‘sir,’” Borwankar said.
She continued: “The voice of ‘sir’ was very different, and no one in our department could identify who the ‘sir’ was. We first sent the team to Kolkata and later to Delhi to arrest Vicky Malhotra and Farid Tanasha. Inspector Patil was there in Delhi, and he was taking commands directly from me as DCP Dhananjay Kamlakar missed his flight. Inspector Patil confronted Vicky Malhotra and another person who called himself an ex-joint director of IB. He called up the Delhi Police control room and the news was spread in the media as well.”
