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India and Pakistan are at loggerheads over extradition of Chhota Shakeel's aide Munna Zingada after the latter filed an appeal in a Thailand court seeking his custody claiming him to be a Pakistani national, media reports said.
Pakistan's legal move comes even as the same court had ruled in favour of New Delhi's request that gangster Mudassar Hussain Sayyed, alias Munna Zingada (50), be extradited to India.
Zingada's extradition to India can help New Delhi prove Dawood Ibrahim's presence in Pakistan, which is why it is posing obstructions and claiming him to be a Pakistani national.
Dawood Ibrahim is the key accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts that left nearly 257 people dead, 713 seriously injured and destroyed properties worth Rs 27 crore.
Zingada, 50, a native of the Jogeshwari area in Mumbai and a close aide of Chhota Shakeel, had gone to Bangkok in 2000 to eliminate gangster Chhota Rajan at the behest of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.
Rajan had survived the attack but his close aide Rohit Verna was killed.
After the attack, Zingada had fled to Pakistan and returned to Thailand in 2001 with a Pakistani passport.
He was then arrested in Thailand and convicted in the case of attack on Rajan. Zingada served 16 years in a Thailand prison after the conviction.
Pakistan has also been trying to take his custody through diplomatic channels by submitting his Pakistani passport and school leaving certificate to the Thai authorities.
However, the Indian authorities had provided a strong proof of Zingada's nationality by submitting his finger print details, ration card, voter identity card and DNA samples of his kin.
In 2016, the Crime Branch team had travelled to Thailand to expedite the process.
The police team had submitted in a Thai court a dossier on Zingada, mentioning his crime record in Mumbai during his stay between 1994-97 along with his personal details.
