Mumbai: Former Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar, who also served as CBI joint director, has revealed that underworld don Dawood Ibrahim had a secret marriage with a Bollywood film actor, and the two had a son who reportedly lives in Bengaluru. In a book titled Dial D for Don that will be published shortly, Mr Kumar recounts the sequence of events that led to this and other discoveries and conversations with Dawood.
It was 1993. The Mumbai blasts had occurred recently; investigations were on in full swing. In Delhi, members of Dawood’s gang including Subhash Singh Thakur, Bhai Thakur, Chandrakant Patil and Paresh Desai were arrested. A large consignment of weapons and ammunition was discovered when their premises were searched.
The interrogation of the arrested men led to further arrests. One of these was Ahmed Mansoor, who was picked up from Delhi’s Jama Masjid area. He handled the gang’s hawala business, and knew Dawood from childhood.
Kumar writes, “Mansoor told us about Dawood’s lavish lifestyle in Dubai, his fondness for mujras (soirées musicales) and women, his keen interest in cricket and Bollywood and how his word was the law in Mumbai. Most disputes involving real estate, monetary matters, release dates of films by different Bollywood producers, casting of film stars, etc., were decided in his ‘court’ in Dubai. Almost all Bollywood personalities called on him to pay their obeisance. He had taken a special fancy to a film actress, whom he secretly married. The two reportedly have a son who is being brought up in Bengaluru by the film star’s sister.”
Mansoor’s interrogation and follow-up investigation led the CBI to material on the linkages of East-West Airlines — India’s first privately owned but now defunct airlines — with D-company. Further, the involvement of the then minister for power and a sitting MP in providing shelter to the gangsters came to light, Mr Kumar recounts.
