New Delhi: Former Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar has claimed that underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, the mastermind of the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai that claimed around 300 lives, wanted to surrender but the CBI did not agree to it.

Neeraj Kumar also claimed to have spoken to Dawood Ibrahim three times in June 1994.

“I spoke to a jittery Dawood three times in June 1994… He seemed to be toying with the idea of surrendering but had one worry – his rival gangs could finish him off if he returned to India. I told him his safety would be the responsibility of the CBI,” Neeraj Kumar has told Hindustan Times.

“Dawood was worried that his rivals may kill him if he would come back. I played along and told him that the CBI would take care of his safety if he were to return but before we could actually talk terms of surrender, my bosses in the CBI told me to back off,” Neeraj Kumar says in the HT interview.

In June 1994, Neeraj Kumar was with the CBI and he was leading the agency’s probe into 1993 Mumbai blasts.

Reacting to Neeraj Kumar’s claims, former CBI director Vijay Rama Rao said, “No such offer of surrender came from Dawood Ibrahim. If it’s the case, it was not brought to my knowledge.”

“Let all facts come out. Without entire facts be known, it would be premature and incorrect to say anything,” BJP leader Nalin Kohli said.

Last December, the Modi government, in bilateral talks with Pakistan, had sought custody of Dawood Dawood Ibrahim.

Intelligence sources also said that Dawood is a special guest staying in Pakistan’s much guarded defence area and so much is the secrecy that Pakistan sees that Dawood and his kin fly to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage in charter flights.

(Agencies)