NEW YORK: India on Tuesday claimed that Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company’s mutation from a criminal syndicate into a terror network “a real and present danger” in the region.
“In our region, we have seen the mutation of Dawood Ibrahim’s criminal syndicate into a terrorist network known as the D-Company,” said Syed Akbaruddin, India’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, in the UN Security Council.
“Its illegitimate economic activities may be little known outside, but for us, such activities as gold smuggling, counterfeit currency, arms and drug trafficking from a safe haven that declines to acknowledge even his existence, are a real and present danger,” he stressed.
Akbaruddin made the comments during an open debate on ‘Threats to International Peace and Security: Linkages between International Terrorism and Organised Crime’.
Dawood Ibrahim is wanted in India to face the law of the land for carrying out serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993 in which scores of people were killed and injured.
Akbaruddin stressed for collective action for destroying terror groups like D-Company, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba. “Success of collective action to denude ISIL is a pointer that the Council’s focused attention can and does yield results. A similar degree of interest in addressing threats posed by proscribed individuals, such as Dawood Ibrahim and his D-Company as well as proscribed entities, including the Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, listed as affiliates of Al-Qaeda, under the 1267 sanctions regime, will serve all of us well,” he said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has suspected that Dawood Ibrahim is currently in Pakistan after secretly recording his close aide and Karachi-based businessman Jabir Motiwala, who was arrested in London in August last year.
Akbaruddin stressed that collective action between countries is required to curb the flow of revenue generated by illicit activities of terror groups across borders. “Revenues generated by illicit activities of terrorist and criminal groups are moved across borders and exchanged through open networks. This flow of resources, meant to produce violence and terror, needs to be stopped by states working together. Collective inter-state efforts are required, including at regional and sub-regional levels,” he said.
“We also need to sensitise the private and public enterprises involved in facilitating legitimate transboundary financial flows and we should harness their support, so that they do not fall prey to malevolent objectives, in the vein of Osama bin Laden’s string of retail honey shops,” he added. (ANI)