Dawood Ibrahim: A death that wasn't — how two unrelated incidents sparked speculation in India

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, December 18

Two unrelated incidents combined to spark speculation in India about the ill-health and even death of wanted fugitive Dawood Ibrahim, credibly believed to be living in Karachi, Pakistan.

Intelligence sources here said there was information that Dawood had been keeping unwell.

On Sunday, this news combined with the widespread internet shutdown in Pakistan and a video from a Pakistani YouTuber, both on Sunday, fuelled speculation among Indian social media’s keyboard warriors that Dawood had been poisoned by “unknown men” and had probably died.

A post on ‘X’, formerly Twitter, even had details of Dawood’s funeral cortege which was then widely copied without attribution and posted liberally on X and Facebook.

While the 67-year-old is known for his hedonistic lifestyle which may have led to illness, Indian social media frenzy connected the shutdown of the Internet in most of urban Pakistan on Sunday with Islamabad’s desire to keep the news under wraps.

Debunking the connection, sources here said the clamp down on Internet services in large parts of Pakistan was primarily related to Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s announcement of show of strength in cyberspace through a “virtual jalsa” which the authorities wanted to prevent.

This approach led to outages in the services of social media platforms including X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, according to its users in Pakistan.

Intelligence sources here also subscribed to the attempt by Pakistani authorities to guard against PTI getting traction in the run up to the elections scheduled for February 8 next year.  

Combined with these two was a Pakistani YouTuber who deduced that the internet shutdown was to prevent news from spreading about Dawood’s allegedly grave illness due to presumed poisoning by Indian intelligence agents.

A similar rumour about poisoning of another terrorist mastermind Sajid Mir in a Pakistani jail also did the rounds about 10 days back.

Like Mir, the US has declared a bounty of $25 million on Dawood’s head for his suspected role in the 1993 Bombay bombings.

The sources pointed out that the US with the world’s most pervasive intelligence services is yet to change the status of the two fugitives who are shown as still living on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) website, pointed out the sources.