For long, Dawood Ibrahim was the man whose name was synonymous with terror before many other able hands took over.
This man's importance cannot be over-stressed but it is said that the ISI shifted him out of the country for a few hours when the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was visiting Pakistan. (India has for long accused Pakistan of providing Dawood with shelter and Islamabad did not want an embarrassment when the prime minister was there for peace talks.)
Son of a police constable, Dawood first dabbled with petty crime before climbing the rungs of the Mumbai mafia. The 1993 blasts saw Dawood turn from smuggler and criminal to terrorist and traitor.
The ISI is accused of using him to orchestrate the serial blasts and ever since he has been declared a terrorist by the United States in 2005 and the United Nations has put him on a special list of few who are in contact with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Image: A file photo taken on March 13, 1993, shows officials inspecting damage in the basement of the Air India building, hit by one of the series of bombs that rocked Mumbai.
Photograph: Douglas E Curran/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: 'Dawood, Tiger Memon can't be convicted'
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