'6 shooters went to kill Dawood in Pakistan...'
Best-selling Author S Hussain Zaidi has just published his latest book From Dubai To Karachi: The Dawood Saga Continues.
Zaidi, a former crime reporter in Mumbai, began his career as an author with Black Friday: The True Story of Bombay Bomb Blasts (2002) in which he revealed how Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence, ISI, carried out the March 12, 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai with the city underworld's help.
Dawood was living in Dubai when the blasts occurred.
Zaidi's second book Dongri to Dubai (2012) traced Dawood's rise from the bylanes of Dongri in the Muslim quarter of south Mumbai and made for a fascinating read.
From Dubai to Karachi: The Dawood Saga Continues tracks Dawood's crime graph after he shifted to Karachi post the Mumbai blasts.
What is this fascination with Dawood Ibrahim, and why, Zaidi tells Syed Firdaus/Rediff in an interview.
What is Dawood doing in Pakistan after he moved to Dubai following the 1993 Mumbai blasts? Is he living under the protection of Pakistan's ISI?
I won't say he is living in a shell. He has a protection cordon around him. I have heard Dawood has gone for Haj and Umrah too.
He has businesses across the world for which he travels.
We do not have a trail of his movements on a day to day basis, but yes, he is surely not living as a prisoner in Pakistan. His movements are limited though.
How come our intelligence agencies have failed to get any new photos of Dawood Ibrahim? The only picture we see of Dawood is 40 years old...
This is the problem with our intelligence agencies.
Shutting down R&AW in Pakistan was the biggest mistake. This happened during Prime Minister I K Gujral's time. They shut down R&AW operations in Pakistan abruptly (in 1997).
Had they been working, we would have all the photographs and movements of Dawood Ibrahim by now. This was the biggest mistake from our side.
I don't know whether we have re-established a R&AW desk in Pakistan after this.
Does your book cover other aspects of Dawood Ibrahim, like his henchman Chotta Shakeel, or for that matter his brother Anees?
They are around the book's main character. I have done profiling them but the main subject in the book is Dawood.
What about Dawood's family? What do they do?
One daughter died. Another daughter is married to Junaid Miandad (Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad's son). One son, Moin, is very religious and follows the Salafi doctrine of Islam.
Your film script for Phantom showcased eliminating Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists in Pakistan. Has India actually tried to bump off Dawood?
Yes, we did try in 2005. A former Intelligence Bureau officer did try and I have written about this in one of my books.
At that point of time two shooters were going to bump off Dawood.
Vicky Oberoi and Fareed Tanasha were going to do the job but due to some misunderstanding that plot got foiled in a Delhi hotel.
Another time, we were about to eliminate him in Karachi when Dawood was coming out of a mosque, but unfortunately the shooters could not do the job as their weapons did not reach them on time.
I have written about this incident in my book Byculla to Bangkok. Six shooters went to kill Dawood in Pakistan but returned empty-handed.
You mean, they reached the mosque to shoot Dawood but the weapons did not reach!?
The planning was weak and we could not execute it.
Have we done such operations in Pakistan?
It is now that we have started doing it.
As I told you earlier, shutting down the R&AW desk was a very wrong decision by the Gujral government. Had they been working non-stop we would have deeply entrenched assets in Pakistan.
What about the film on your latest book with Director Vishal Bhardwaj?
He told me he would read Dubai to Karachi and revert. Till then he told me not to sell the rights to any other filmmaker.
Don't you get bored of Dawood Ibrahim as a subject?
It is like asking don't you get bored watching Tom Cruise movies or watching Shah Rukh Khan movies?
Or for that matter you personally, don't you get bored of doing journalism?
The answer would be 'no' because this is my bread and butter.
I tried to write on other things too but I realised people do not like to read other topics. Whenever they see my name they want to know more about Dawood Ibrahim.
I realised that people expect more on this subject from me and therefore I write on Dawood.
But how do you produce book after book? Like the one you wrote about Khalid, Dawood's mentor. You take one angle from a story and put so much meat into it that it turns into a book.
As a writer, how do you expand a story from just one line?
In the back of your mind you've got to tell yourself that you have to work like a slave. You've got to be a hardworking worker to write a book.
I start writing any book of mine with dedication and devotion.
Dawood is a subject for me and I realised that some aspects (of his life story) are still untold.
I had written about his life's journey till Dubai. I realised that I have not written about his journey from Dubai to Karachi and therefore this book has come out.
Maybe if he does any other activities after Karachi, I will see if I can pursue another book on it, but for now this is my last book on him.
© 2025