How Farooq Takla, Dawood Ibrahim's aide, was brought back to India and arrested

(Reporting by Sanjay Singh and Rakesh Trivedi)

New Delhi: Farooq Takla, an aide of fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, was on Thursday arrested in the national capital by the CBI for his alleged involvement in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.

Takla arrived in New Delhi from Dubai and was arrested by the CBI when he was at an immigration counter at the Indira Gandhi International Airport.

It is said that he was deported from the UAE with the help of central intelligence agencies and put on a flight to Delhi. Takla has been sent to police custody till March 19, 2018, by TADA court in Mumbai.

Following are some of the details of how he was brought back to India:

- Takla is the twin brother of Amjad Langda who resides in Mumbai. He was also an accused in 1993 blast case but was acquitted due to lack of evidence.

- Langda's daughter got married in April 2017. Later a party was held in Dubai which was attended by Dawood's relatives and family members of Taqla.

- As per photographs of the wedding accessed by Zee Media, Alishah Parkar (Dawood's nephew and son of Haseena Parkar) also attended the wedding.

- The high profile party attended by so many key contacts of the underworld don made the Indian intelligence agencies swing into action. As per Zee Media sources, the few calls intercepted by the investigative agencies resulted in the identification of Takla in a new role, living in UAE with a changed identity.

- Since then he was under continuous surveillance by the Indian agencies.

- Sources say that NSA Ajit Doval was given the task to bring Takla back to the country by the PMO.

- On July 27, 2017, the UAE ministry of interior’s director general of security affairs was informed via Interpol (through IP message No 112220-2/62/IP/16378/10794) about the extradition of Takla. However, it is not known when he was detained/arrested by the UAE authorities.

- On August 8, 2017, the CBI got a non-bailable warrant issued from TADA court in Mumbai against Takla (number 0/w20072/17). It was sent to the UAE along with red corner notice (number A-385/7-1995), which was issued by Interpol in Lyons (France).

- On August 22, 2017, the Government of India made a formal extradition request to the UAE.

- According to Zee Media sources, Dawood, who is said to still enjoy a considerable clout in the UAE Royal circles, swung into action and Takla’s Pakistani passport was given to the UAE authorities claiming that he was a Pakistani national.

- The UAE then reportedly became hesitant to handover Takla to Indian authorities, resulting in unexplained delay and zero-movement from their side.

- Then came Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tour of Abu Dhabi from Jordan on the second leg of his three-nation tour in February 2018. PM Modi was received by Mohammed bin Zayed and other members of the Royal family at the airport.

- It is said that PM Modi and his team held wide-ranging talks with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and his team over the issue of Takla among other things.

- Doval was also part of the team and he is said to have held a separate talk with Lt General Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan of UAE on the matter. An informal request was made to expedite the extradition in these talks. 

- Agency sources attribute the success in bringing back Takla to efforts of PM Modi and Ajit Doval in forging security alliances with foreign countries.