As the campaigning for Lok Sabha election gains momentum, politicians have been making allegations against each other at an increased rate. Joining this, Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar has said that NCP leader Sharad Pawar had rejected an offer from Dawood Ibrahim for surrender. He said that Dawood Ibrahim was ready to surrender to India, but Sharad Pawar had ignored this proposal.
According to Prakash Ambedkar, Dawood Ibrahim had met Ram Jethmalani in London, and had proposed to surrender. Dawood was ready to participate in the judicial process and was even ready to go to jail, with only one condition that third-degree torture should not be used on him, Ambedkar said. This proposal was forwarded to NCP chief Sharaf Pawar, but he didn’t act on it. He said that now demands of bringing back Dawood Ibrahim has been made but Sharad Pawar has already lost the opportunity.
Prakash Ambedkar is not the first person to make this allegation, this claim keeps coming into public domain from time to time. Ram Jethmalani himself had revealed that indeed Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel had offered to surrender, but it was rejected by both Maharashtra CM Sharad Pawar and UPA government in centre at that time. He had said that Dawood’s only condition for surrender was that he should be kept in house arrest instead of jail, and an assurance that he wouldn’t be subjected to third-degree torture by police.
In fact, Sharad Pawar also did not deny the claim, and had confirmed that Ram Jethmalani had indeed approached him with the proposal for surrender from the underworld don and the prime accused in the Mumbai bomb blast case. But the proposal was rejected because the conditions were not acceptable to the state government. Sharad Pawar had said that the condition that Dawood should be kept in house arrest instead of jail was not acceptable for the Maharashtra government.
After the Pulwama attack, the demand from taking action against Pakistan based terrorists is at peak. In such a scenario, Prakash Ambedkar reminding people that Sharad Pawar missed an opportunity to get Dawood Ibrahim back can be seen as a clever political strategy. Prakash Ambedkar had earlier rejected the offer to join the mahagathbandhan led by the Congress party, and has joined hands with Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM for the Lok Sabha elections. They have formed a platform called Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, and Ambedkar has already released a list of 37 candidates for Maharashtra.
