New Delhi: India's most wanted fugitive Dawood Ibrahim is believed to have passed away in Pakistan's Karachi, media reports said.
According to media reports, he died of COVID-19.
Intelligence sources had earlier stated that Dawood and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 and were admitted in Army Hospital, Karachi.
However, Dawood's brother Anees Ibrahim denied such reports, saying that both of them are fine.
Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, patronised by Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is believed to be residing in Karachi and is accused in several cases of cross border crimes including the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.
For years, Islamabad has repeatedly denied Dawood and his family's presence in Pakistan.D-company's sharpshooter and in-charge of extortion and betting syndicate, Chhota Shakeel, also resides in Karachi.
Settled in Pakistan since 1994, Dawood's family in Karachi also includes his daughter Mahrukh, who is married to the son of former Pakistan star cricketer, Javed Miandad.
D-company's strategist Anees has been in news since the early 1990s when he reportedly got a vehicle loaded with arms parked in filmstar Sanjay Dutt's residence in Mumbai. He was also accused of funding Bollywood films and running betting syndicates in cricket from his base in Dubai. A couple of years ago, he was reportedly detained in Saudi Arabia but managed to escape from Indian agencies' dragnet.
Intelligence dossier submitted by the Indian government to various international agencies including the UN and Interpol reveals that D-company has a major transport business running across Karachi airport to Afghanistan.
The truckers employed by D-company also help the don in the trafficking of contraband heroin through a well-oiled chain of carriers on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Of late, Dawood and his brother have also invested in hotel and resorts business in Pakistan and the UAE. The don also owns several malls in Sindh province, besides a paper mill in Kotri, near Hyderabad (Pakistan).
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