mumbai

Updated: Feb 21, 2019 08:56 IST

Dawood Ibrahim, India’s most wanted criminal who is accused of masterminding the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, may still be living in Karachi, Pakistan, a close relative of his wife told a special court on Wednesday.

The court, formed under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), recorded the testimony of 71-year-old Salim Ibrahim Shaikh — who claimed to be the paternal uncle of Ibrahim’s wife, Mehzabeen — in connection with a 2004 case against two gutkha barons for having links with the underworld.

It was alleged that the two gutkha barons took Ibrahim’s help to settle a business dispute in Mumbai and in return, helped Ibrahim’s brother, Anees, establish a gutkha company in Pakistan.

Shaikh, one of the prosecution witnesses in the case, said he had visited Ibrahim’s family in Karachi in August 2004 to meet an ailing relative. He claimed Jamiruddin Ansari, an accused in the gutkha case, had asked him to deliver a parcel to Anees while he was in Pakistan.

Shaikh said he was received by Mehzabeen at the Karachi airport and later went to Dawood’s bungalow in the affluent Clifton area in the city. Shaikh said he handed over Ansari’s parcel to Dawood, saying they were meant for Anees.

According to the prosecution, the parcel contained gutkha packets and not “household items” as Shaikh was made to believe. Shaikh claimed Dawood called Anees over the phone and abused him for sending the items through him.

Shaikh also told the court that Mehzeeban called him every fortnight since early 2018 to check on his health but had stopped communicating for the past six to eight months.