Advani wants Islamabad to hand over Dawood Ibrahim

Hyderabad, May 17 (UNI) Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha L K Advani today urged Pakistan to hand over underworld don Dawood Ibrahim to India.

Talking to newspersons here, the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate said, ''there is a formidable basis for Pakistan to carry out its promise of handing him (Dawood Ibrahim) over to India.'' Referring to Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's reported offer to hand over the under world don to India, if it furnished proof against him, he said, ''I am happy that for the first time, Islamabad has officially admitted that he (Dawood Ibrahim) is in Pakistan.'' Interpol had declared him an absconder as also the US. Indian courts, hearing the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, too had declared him an absconder, he pointed out and asked Islamabad to fulfill its ''promise''.

Besides the UPA Government's alleged failure to contain terrorism due to ''vote-bank'' considerations was threatening India's national security, he alleged, referring to terrorist strikes in different parts of the country, the latest being in Jaipur.

''For its short-term electoral gains, the Congress is making India pay a very heavy price in the form of the blood of innocent citizens,'' he alleged.

The terrorist strikes in the last four years at Delhi, Ayodhya, Varanasi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Malegaon, Hyderabad, Ajmer, Jammu and Jaipur, among others, showed that their reach had considerably expanded but not a single case of terrorist attack had been properly investigated and culprits charge-sheeted during the UPA rule, he contended.

In addition to the cross-border terrorism from Pakistan, the country was witnessing a steady growth of cross-border terrorism from Bangladesh, he added.

''This is not unrelated to the total apathy, bordering on collusion, that the UPA Government has displayed on the issue of large-scale infiltration of Bangladeshis. It is no wonder that one organisation whose hand had been seen in most of the terrorist attacks during the past four years is Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJi),'' he added.

UNI SM VA KD BST1338