Dawood in 'setting' with government to return to India: Raj Thackeray (Lead, With Images)

Fugitive mafia don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar wants to return to India and is negotiating a settlement with the BJP-led government at the Centre, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena President Raj Thackeray said here on Thursday.

Making the sensational claim, Thackeray said that Dawood is now very sick and crippled, and is very keen to return to India and breathe his last in his motherland.

"He is currently engaged in a 'setting' with the government, and this could happen," Thackeray said at a huge gathering to launch his official Facebook Page.

However, he alleged that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party will exploit it politically by claiming that it managed to bring the absconder don to India.

"I want to tell you this in advance. It is that man (Dawood) who is keen to return... But, the BJP will claim credit for this to win the next elections," Thackeray claimed.

Dawood is the architect of India's biggest single terror attack so far - the March 12, 1993 Mumbai terror strikes which killed 257 and injured hundreds others.

Starting out as a petty smuggler in the Mumbai docks in the 1970s, he quickly climbed up in the underworld and now ranks among the globally most wanted terrorists. He is said to be hiding in Pakistan.

Thackeray also criticized the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on various grounds, including the recently launched Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project, the Swachh Bharat Mission and demonetization.

"Big promises were made -- this will be done and that will be done... But there were only speeches and diversions - first yoga, then taking brooms for cleaning up, now football... Except changing the colour of currency notes, there is no change in the country," Thackeray declared.

He described the BJP as "an inverted pyramid" which would collapse if the "two pillars" (implying Modi and BJP President Amit Shah) are shaken.

The MNS chief lashed out at Modi for making "false propaganda" and duping the very people who voted for him with great faith.

--IANS

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