Interpol issues special notice on Dawood

New Delhi: Interpol has issued a special notice against India's most wanted criminal sought for the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai that killed more than 260 people, the international police agency's website showed.

The notice sent to all 184 member countries places the Indian don, Dawood Ibrahim, on the same list as Al Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden and seeks freezing of his assets, ban on travel and an arms embargo.

The notice on www.interpol.int also gave two of his possible addresses in Pakistan, which seemingly backs India's long-standing charge that Ibrahim is hiding in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. Islamabad denies he is in Pakistan.

U.S. Misra, Interpol's vice-president for Asia and former chief of India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), said the notice issued last week would create pressure on Pakistan.

"All member countries, including Pakistan, will have to give priority in tracing him as per the UN Security Council guidelines." Misra was quoted as saying in the Times of India newspaper.

"It's a kind of notice issued against terrorists associated with the Al Qaida organisation." CBI officials could not be contacted for comment.

The tough new notice gives details of Ibrahim's 11 passports issued in India, Pakistan and Yemen, 17 aliases and also the countries from which he is known to operate.

Ibrahim has been on Interpol's notice after the 1993 Mumbai blasts and the US Treasury named him on its global terrorist list linking him to Al Qaida in 2003. Last month, in crime control talks with Pakistan, India raised the issue of Ibrahim with Pakistani officials. Ibrahim heads the shadowy underworld in the nation's bustling commercial and film hub and has many criminal cases against him.