Mumbai, Nov. 22: Anwar Shaikh, 42, has just a minor extortion case registered against him in the city. But Chhota Shakeel’s younger brother has been on Mumbai police’s most-wanted list since 2004 for allegedly being Pakistani spy agency ISI’s favourite backroom boy facilitating terror attacks in India.

Top officers in Mumbai were today cautious about reports that Anwar had been arrested by Dubai police on Friday. They are waiting for a communication from police and investigating agencies in the United Arab Emirates.

“Yes, we have received reports from our sources in Dubai that Anwar Shaikh has been detained. But we have no official confirmation yet,” said joint commissioner of police (crime) Rakesh Maria.

“No police or investigating agency has contacted us about it. But there was an international red-corner notice against him for a murder in the UAE. We also want him here for his terror links. If he has indeed been arrested, we will put in a request for extradition.”

A CBI spokesperson in Delhi declined to confirm Anwar’s arrest.

Maria said that after Dawood Ibrahim aide Shakeel escaped to Dubai in 1988, Anwar, who ran a realty business in Andheri, handled his brother’s finances in Mumbai.

“He was mainly into hawala. The extortion money collected by the Dawood gang was routed by him to Dubai and Pakistan.”

Shakeel, whose relations with Dawood are apparently not at their best, later placed Anwar in Dubai to run his underworld operations in India and the Emirates.

Taking advantage of the rift and to create a foil to the ageing Dawood, the ISI allegedly used Anwar to facilitate terror activities in Mumbai and Gujarat.

“Intelligence reports suggest that appointing Anwar to head operations in Mumbai and Gujarat was part of the ISI’s strategy to shift attention from Dawood, declared a global terrorist after the Twin Tower attacks of September 11, 2001,” a top police source said. “His job is to instigate subversive activities in Mumbai and Gujarat.”

There is a Bengal connection too. Anwar, the source said, shuttled between Calcutta and Bangladesh for a while in 2005-2006. “His recent phone calls to contacts in Mumbai indicated they were being made from Calcutta and Bangladesh.”