Did Dawood Ibrahim want to surrender? Controversy erupts over underworld don

NEW DELHI: After a controversy erupted over underworld fugitive Dawood Ibrahim's alleged offer to surrender over the 1993 Mumbai blasts, former CBI top officer Shantanu Sen confirms that there were indeed talks with the gangster over his trial in India, Times Now reported on Monday.
Former Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar on Saturday denied reports that quoted him saying that Dawood Ibrahim wanted to surrender, and that the then government scuttled the plans at the last moment.
READ ALSO: ​Ex-Delhi top cop Neeraj Kumar denies saying Dawood Ibrahim negotiated surrender
Dawood Ibrahim wanted to surrender, former Delhi Police chief Neeraj Kumar claims
Commenting on the development, Ram Jethmalani, an emminent lawyer, said, "I was in London myself. Dawood approached me and told me he wants to come to India because this case is false".
"He said if you can see that I'm under house arrest and not put in jail, I'm prepared to come & face trial," Jethmalani added.
Jethmalani said he had communicated this to the politicians in power at that time in Maharashtra and they consulted whoever they wanted to consult and said that they didn't want to accept this offer.
The lawyer said this offer was "ought to have been accepted by the politicians who were in power at that time".
Pawar mum on row over Dawood 'surrender offer'
NCP chief Sharad Pawar declined to comment on the claims that the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, one of the prime accused in 1993 Mumbai blasts, wanted to surrender.
Pawar, who was the chief minister of Maharashtra in early 1990s, declined to comment when asked by reporters at Aurangabad about reports that Dawood had offered to surrender.
Neeraj Kumar in an interview to a national daily last week, was quoted as saying Dawood, labelled by the US as 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist', had got in touch with him and wanted to surrender, but the plan was shelved by the government.
However, the 1976 batch IPS officer who retired as Delhi police chief in 2013, later denied reports attributed to him that Dawood had negotiated surrender with him months after the 1993 blasts and that the government of the day scuttled the plans at the last moment.