Musician Nadeem Saifi enjoying Dawood Ibrahim's protection in Britain, suggests intercepted phone calls

Mumbai: Two private television channels alleged on Monday that music composer Nadeem Saifi of ‘Nadeem-Shravan’ duo may be under the protection of absconding mafia don Dawood Ibrahim. The revelation reportedly came following the interception of phone conversations between Dawood and his aides, which were aired by India Today TV and Aaj Tak TV on Monday. [caption id=“attachment_1023941” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Dawood Ibrahim. Courtesy: CNN-News18[/caption] The conversations, purportedly between Dawood and his henchmen in Dubai and London, suggest that Nadeem, currently in self-exile in the United Kingdom, may be enjoying protection from the don. The authenticity of the clips aired on TV could not be independently verified. An associate of Dawood, who called up, used code-words like ‘Ustad’, ‘London Friend’, etc, which apparently referred to Nadeem and the three intercepted calls were made in early 2015, according to the channels. Nadeem is a suspect in the murder of music baron Gulshan Kumar, who was gunned down on 12 August, 1997. Kumar, the New Delhi-based fruit juice vendor-turned-music baron and founder of the T-Series of Super Cassettes Industries Ltd, was killed by three unidentified assailants outside a Shiva temple in Andheri.   Earlier, the Indian government had lost a plea seeking his extradition to India before the British courts and Nadeem continues to live there since the past 20 years. It was alleged that Gulshan Kumar had some personal disputes with Nadeem, besides his refusal to pay extortion money reportedly demanded by the don’s gang. Later in 2001, a person named Abdul Rauf Merchant confessed to Kumar’s killing and was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. The channels said that Dawood’s voice in the audio clips of the telephonic conversations have been confirmed by the police, intelligence sources and others. Now, the channels have said they plan to hand over the tapes to Mumbai’s Thane Police which arrested Dawood’s younger brother Iqbal Ibrahim Kaskar in connection with several extortion cases. During his interrogation by the Thane Police’s anti-extortion cell, Iqbal has, among other things, revealed that Dawood — wanted for several major crimes in India, including the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts — is hale and hearty and living in Pakistan.