The impressive cover of The Most Dangerous Man in the World: Dawood Ibrahim would make anyone anticipate a daring enterprise by the author, Gilbert King. What flickered in my mind for a moment instinctively was Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. But this is a story that will read far more ‘dangerous’ than any work of fiction. For the subject of the book happens to be the real life ventures of a “Billionaire Gangster”, who is also the “Protector of Osama bin Laden”. Moreover, he is also identified as a “Nuclear Black Market Entrepreneur” and “Islamic Extremist and Global Terrorist”. So much for the promising paper cover of the book!

Designating Dawood Ibrahim as the “Osama bin Laden of South Asia”, Gilbert King begins his book in a way that holds the reader’s attention. An incisive contrast between Dawood Ibrahim and Osama bin Laden heightens the curiousity of the reader.

“Financially…bin Laden is a pauper by comparison. Dawood Ibrahim controls the largest drug smuggling routes in an area that produces more than 75 percent of the world’s heroin…He formed his own gang in India, “D Company” which grew into a mega network and remains one of the deadliest and most politically connected organized crime outfits in the world…And recent events in Pakistan involving the nuclear black market and Dr A. Q. Khan’s confession regarding the transport of enriched uranium and missiles hint at Dawood’s involvement.”

But the author disappoints with the first factual and spelling errors in the first chapter itself. Tracing back the relationship between Dawood and ISI to 1993, he says,

“…Dawood agreed, at the ISI’s behest, to strike back at India for allowing communal riots to occur after the Babri Masjid mosque in Bombay (happened in Ayodhya) was demolished by more than a million protesting Hindis (Hindus)”.

The reader’s enthusiasm is diminished about the don who “lives like a king” in Karachi, sheltered by the ISI. The narrative is often interspersed with intriguing facts that keep the interest of the reader alive. For instance,

“He is believed to have bailed out Pakistan’s Central Bank during a crisis in 2000, and at a time when no country in the world had more sanctions leveled against it, Pakistan was still able to fund and purchase nuclear technology on the black market”.

The introductory chapter on the most dangerous man is a significant pointer – suggesting how the author will tell the story of Dawood Ibrahim, who has the contradictory identities of being “the ultimate twenty-first century businessman” on one hand and “the scourge of earth” on the other. While we want to read on because of the elusive nature of the subject, we cannot help feeling skeptical about King’s treatment of the same.

In the succeeding chapters, the author presents an interesting assortment of facts coupled with his own inferences. He relates the death of Daniel Pearl to “what little he knew about Dawood Ibrahim”. His pivotal role in N-smuggling is also proven by his connection to the “notorious black market nuclear dealer”, Bukhary Seyed Abu Tahir whom President Bush referred to as the “chief financial officer and money launderer” operating for the top Pakistani scientist, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan.

With very little research on the early days of Dawood Ibrahim in Bombay – “his rise from street urchin to crime lord” – the reader is left asking for more. Yet King manages to get the reader back with Dawood Ibrahim’s “nostalgic interest” in Bollywood which is arguably stronger than his weakened power in extortion and funding schemes in the film industry since the incarceration of Abu Salem, who maintained his control of Bollywood, in Lisbon in 2002.

From intra-gang rivalry to masterminding the serial blasts in 1993, from facing extradition to India in Dubai to running a billion dollar business in Pakistan ( a country that has supported the US in the war against terrorism), Dawood Ibrahim’s world is “deadly” and “dangerous”. Yet there is security for Dawood Ibrahim between life and death. Here Gilbert King documents a brief history of Pakistan’s ISI to understand its “permissiveness” towards Dawood Ibrahim. What especially engages the reader is the connection between Osama bin Laden and Dawood Ibrahim and how he took advantage of 9/11 attacks and strengthened his position further.

Discussing Dawood’s final stand in the concluding chapter, King once again returns to his discerning assessment of the two global terrorists. “Unlike Osama bin Laden, who is willing to live in dark, cold caves to facilitate his jihad against the west, Dawood has always been about self self-preservation without sacrifice”.

A perusal of The Most Dangerous Man in the World: Dawood Ibrahim leaves us with the impression that it is a safe project. It often reads like a collection of facts, oft-repeated and even inaccurate at times. There is nothing ‘daring’ about the book. Had Gilbert King written fiction with the same set of facts, he could have raised a few ‘dangerous’ questions about the most dangerous man in the world!