LONDON, England
Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s close aide Iqbal Mirchi, an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, died of a heart attack in London on Wednesday. Mirchi, 63, the right-hand man of India‘s topmost terrorist, also facing drug smuggling charges in India, had been living in a large six-bedroom home in an exclusive part of Hornchurch, a town in Essex, northeast of London
for the past 15 years. Ranked among the world’s top 50 drug barons, Muhammed Iqbal Memon or Iqbal Mirchi had been issued an Interpol Red Corner Notice in 1994 on Central Bureau of Investigation’s request. Back in April 1995, officers from Scotland Yard raided Mirchi’s home and arrested him on a slew of drugs and terrorism charges in connection with the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts. By the time the case came to court, those charges had been dropped and replaced with a charge relating to the murder of the manager of Mirchi’s London rice mill, who was shot dead in Mumbai soon after quitting his job. However, an extradition request by India was turned down by magistrates here.
Scotland Yard‘s investigation of Mirchi, which ended in 1999, failed to find any evidence of criminal activity and in 2001 the UK Home Office granted him indefinite leave to remain in the UK. India‘s most-wanted criminal Dawood Ibrahim is on FBI’s list of top terrorists in the world. An extradition request was turned down when magistrates at Bow Street decided there was no case to answer. India did not appeal, and paid Mirchi’s legal costs. Despite not finding evidence to keep him behind bars, last year the 55-year-old former taxi driver’s name was added to the list of narcotics kingpins issued by the US State Department. In response, Mirchi had written to the US State Department expressing outrage about his name being included on the kingpin list. ‘The bottom line is that I have never made any secret of where I am,’ Mirchi said in interviews. ‘The British police, the Indian police, the American police all have my address because I have written to them and told them. If I am a kingpin and they want to arrest me, they know exactly where to find me.’
