Mumbai: Danish Ahmed, who worked with Russian intelligence agents in arms deals and was close to Dawood Ibrahim’s nephew Sohel, has claimed that he was pressurised by the D-gang to back off from his plea to turn approver in an extortion case.
Danish, a diamond broker from Delhi, was examined as a prosecution witness after he turned approver in an extortion case registered against Dawood’s nephew Sohel and others. Sohel, the son of Dawood’s younger brother Noora Ibrahim, is still wanted in the case, as the Indian agencies failed to get him extradited from the US. Presently, four accused are facing trial in the case.
Danish, while deposing before the court, said that ever since he gave a confessional statement, he was under pressure from the other accused in the case to back off. The accused are all associated with the D-gang and have been booked for extortion from a city-based hotelier.
Danish claimed that due to the pressure from co-accused Aziz Unni and another accused, he had also submitted an application for retraction of his confessional statement. He said the application had been brought to him by the brother of the accused and he had signed and submitted it to the court out of fear. It was only after he was put in the high-security cell that he wrote to the court expressing his willingness to turn approver in the case. He claimed that even after he pleaded with the court to allow him to become an approver, he was pressurised to withdraw the said plea.
The special MCOCA court had recorded Danish’s statement on July 14 and granted him pardon. Now being examined as a prosecution witness in the case, his chief examination is over while the cross-examination by the lawyers of the accused remains. In his deposition, Danish has accepted that he gave a statement of his own free will.
In his confessional statement, Danish had claimed that in 2009, after the death of Dawood’s brother Noora Ibrahim, Noora’s son Sohel became a close friend, and both of them moved to Russia where he worked with Russian agents. Danish would travel by Russian chartered flights to Belgium, Dubai, Uganda, Algeria, Venezuela and other places to meet prospective customers and show them pictures of the products on offer. He said he would record all the meetings and hand over the recordings to his handler.
Sohel later told his uncle Anees about Danish’s association with the Russian agents, and Danish was then introduced to Chhota Shakeel and Jabir Motiwala, who was said to be the chief executive officer of the Dawood gang. Motiwala then collected information from him about the supply of weapons and other articles through the Russian agent.
“After two months, Chhota Shakeel placed an order for the supply of around 40 AK-47 rifles,” Danish claimed. He said that when he conveyed the order to the Russian agent, the latter sought more information about Anees, Shakeel and other gang members and also wanted to know the reason they were purchasing the assault rifles.
“The Russian agent asked me to be in touch with them. I had a meeting with Anees Ibrahim, Sohel and Altaf. In that meeting I came to know that the weapons were going to be used in Mumbai and Kashmir,” Danish added.
The Russian agent refused to process the order after he was informed of the purpose behind purchasing the arms. “He refused on the ground that India is friendly with Russia, and we have a treaty with Russia that Russian weapons cannot be used for illegal purposes in India,” said Danish.
In 2014, Danish and Sohel met three agents of the US Drug Enforcement Agency, who posed as Columbians seeking to purchase Russian arms for a revolt. After he showed them the pictures that he had, they chose portable infra-red missile launchers of Igla. After the deal was confirmed in June 2014, Danish and Sohel travelled to Spain to collect the advance and provide the ‘Columbians’ with three samples.
Both were arrested when they went to meet the three Columbians in Spain and were taken to Madrid. Here, they pleaded guilty and were extradited to the US after spending a year and a half in a Madrid jail. Danish was released from the US prison in September 2018 and deported to India.
