CBI withdraws most wanted list from website

IANS

New Delhi, 20 May 2011: Amid embarrassing errors in the list of terrorists hiding in Pakistan, more bloopers have surfaced in the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) overall list of wanted fugitives, prompting the agency Friday to withdraw it from its website for revision.

"We have taken off the list of Most Wanted men and the Red Corner notice from the website," CBI spokesperson Dharini Mishra said to a news agency, adding director AP Singh has ordered a "complete review".

The agency took the action following reports that an alleged south India commander of Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul Jihad-e-Islami Shahed Bilal, who died in Pakistan, figured in the wanted list on its website.

 
Another terror suspect, Shaik Abdul Khaja, lodged in a Hyderabad jail, was also named in the list even though he was captured by Research and Analysis Wing in Colombo last year.

Their names had also figured in the list of Most Wanted against whom the CBI had issued Red Corner notices.

 

 

In 2007, Indian intelligence agencies had claimed that Bilal, blamed for all major terror attacks in south India since 2000, was gunned down in Karachi along with his brother Mohammed Abdul Samad by agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.
The CBI blunders came to light close on the heels of goof-ups in India’s list of 50 Most Wanted men allegedly hiding in Pakistan and which was given by to Islamabad during the March talks between the two countries at the home secretaries level.

Two men on the list were found to be in India - one out on bail in Thane and another in a Mumbai jail.

Left red-faced, the Indian government Friday asked all probe agencies and states to review their lists of fugitives every three months and inform the central authorities "immediately" if there was any change in it.

The government, however, ruled out any possibility of withdrawing the Pakistan list even as authorities were reviewing it.

"We have no plan to recall the list from Pakistan, (but) the entire list is being reviewed," Secretary (Internal Security) UK Bansal told reporters.

The list includes runaway don Dawood Ibrahim, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Hafiz Saeed and the masterminds of November 2008 Mumbai attack and other terror strikes in India.

The opposition slammed Home Minister P Chidambaram for the errors.

Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Prakash Javadekar demanded Chidambaram’s resignation for "weakening the country’s strong case against terrorism before the world".

Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Brinda Karat said the home minister should show some "humility" and not start "shouting and defending himself".