Conflicting reports on the detention of global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim in Pakistan kept rumour mills busy on Tuesday, but security agencies in both India and across the border expressed surprise over the claims.

Some Indian television channels claimed that Dawood, wanted in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, had been wounded in a shoot-out in Karachi. Others reported that the underworld don had been detained in Quetta along with his aides, Tiger Memon and Chhota Shakeel by the ISI.

No security official or hospital in Karachi had any inkling of any shoot-out involving Dawood, who was designated as a global terrorist by the US recently. An official in Karachi pointed out that with President Pervez Musharraf being in town, it was hard to believe that a shoot-out had taken place at a four-star hotel in the port city’s busiest area.

Pakistan’s former Test cricket captain Javed Miandad, whose son is married to Dawood’s daughter, refused to comment on the reports. India has been claiming that Pakistan’s ISI has provided shelter to the don, a contention vehemently denied by Islamabad.

Unlike Indian television channels, no Pakistani channel had any story about Dawood being detained or wounded. The US has already asked Pakistan to hand over Dawood and his aides for their alleged links to Al Qaeda.
In the wake of these reports, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday asked the government to make renewed diplomatic efforts and use “all available leverages’’ to secure his extradition.  It also sought extradition of his close associate Tiger Memon from the neighbouring country.

“Their extradition will be now more meaningful, particularly after more than 10 accused in the Mumbai blasts have been awarded death sentences by the TADA court”, BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said. Even as conflicting media reports about the detention of Dawood Ibrahim in Pakistan put security agencies both in India and across the border in a quandary, people in the temple city of Varanasi on Tuesday celebrated an untimely Holi and Diwali to mark the reported capture of the underworld don.