Dawood Ibrahim will return to India only if conditions met: lawyer

Thane: Fugitive mafia don Dawood Ibrahim is willing to come to India but with certain preconditions, his brother Iqbal Kaskar’s lawyer Shyam Keswani told a Mumbai court on Tuesday. Renowned criminal lawyer Shyam Keswani said Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar had offered to return to India provided the authorities ensure that he is lodged only in the high-secure precincts of Arthur Road Central Jail (ARCJ) in Mumbai and nowhere else during the trial period. Talking to the media outside the Thane Court, where he represented Iqbal Kaskar (Dawood's brother), the lawyer said the preconditions laid down by Dawood are not acceptable to the Indian government. “In fact, he had expressed his intent very clearly to senior counsel Ram Jethmalani (former union minister and eminent lawyer). But the government refused to accept his conditional return and till this day, Dawood has not been arrested,’’ said lawyer Shyam Keswani. Kaskar was produced in the court of chief judicial magistrate RV Thamadekar on Tuesday by Thane police for extension of his custody in an extortion case. The anti-extortion unit of Thane police named Kaskar and his brother Dawood and Anees for threatening a builder at Mumbai's Mira Road. The ARCJ is the same prison where the Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab was lodged for nearly four years till his hanging for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack. The statement of lawyer Shyam Keswani on Dawood's desire to return comes a little after six months when Maharashtra Navnirman Sena President Raj Thackeray made a similar revelation in Mumbai. In his explosive remarks, Raj Thackeray had claimed that not only was Dawood keen to come back but he was reportedly negotiating a 'settlement' with the Narendra Modi-government. Source: Deccan Chronicle