Hand over Dawood Ibrahim to India, Advani told Musharraf in 2001

New Delhi: India’s quest to bring fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim to justice has remained unfulfilled so far but in 2001, the then Union Home Minister L K Advani had put the uncomfortable question of handing over the global terrorist to visiting Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.
“Musharraf’s face suddenly turned red and unfriendly. Hardly able to conceal his discomfort, he said something that I regarded as quite offensive,” Advani had recalled in a blogpost in 2011.
Advani had called on Musharraf, who was in India for the Agra Summit with the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was staying at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.
The former home minister had also pointed out that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s hideout in the garrison town of Abbottabad was constructed when Musharraf was “in total command of the situation” in Pakistan.
Caught off-guard, Musharraf had emphatically denied that Dawood was in his country, a claim that a Pakistani official later said was a “white lie”.
“Musharraf, his unease palpable, replied assertively: ‘Mr. Advani, let me tell you emphatically that Dawood Ibrahim is not in Pakistan’,” the BJP veteran had written in his blog.