Iqbal Hasan Kaskar, 43, is the fourth of the six brothers who make up India's most lethal, well, brotherhood-the D-Company. Named for Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, the best known of the dirty half a dozen, the crime syndicate seemed to suffer a jolt when, on February 19 Iqbal was deported to India by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Government.

Iqbal had been arrested in January at his villa near Dubai airport after he was implicated in the murder of Sharad Shetty. An Indian-born hotelier, Shetty had been murdered on January 19. Shortly afterwards, the Dubai police arrested 30 suspects, 10 of them wanted in India. Besides Iqbal, two of his brothers, Mustaquin and Noora, were also arrested.

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The Indian Government was quick to act, pressuring the UAE authorities to send Iqbal home. Iqbal is named in five murder cases in India. He is also the only Kaskar brother to retain his Indian passport. While the others use Pakistani travel documents, Iqbal has been locked in a legal battle with the Indian Government ever since the Dubai Consulate impounded his passport two years ago.

Along with Iqbal, Ejaz Pathan was also deported to India. Pathan is a former Dawood understudy and one of the main accused in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blast case. Two years ago Chhota Shakeel, Dawood's man Friday, accused Pathan of links with the rival Babloo Srivastava-Chhota Rajan gang. After he was almost gunned down in an attack, Pathan, then a Karachi resident, escaped to Dubai.

As Iqbal and Pathan flew in, Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani described it as a "setback for Pakistan-backed terrorism". R.S. Sharma, Mumbai Police commissioner, was cautious: "It is a victorious moment but not the victory. The event should be looked at critically."

There are enough grounds for cynicism. Far from indicating the D-Company's decline in Dubai, the deportation may actually be evidence of its sense of strategy. Pathan's departure, sources say, was "influenced" by the D-Company so that an enemy would face the heat in India. Pathan will be tried in the special TADA court in Mumbai for his part in the 1993 bomb blasts.

Iqbal's return has a more complicated explanation. It appears that when the Dubai police reached his house to arrest him, a female relative pretended he wasn't home. After placing a guard at the gate, the police returned the following day. The 24-hour interval was just the time Iqbal needed to call Dawood in Karachi and consult him at length on arrest and its implications.

Since Iqbal had declared himself an Indian citizen, he knew he was likely to be deported to his home country. Getting a Pakistani passport, forged or otherwise, at short notice would not have been a problem. As such, the decision to persist with the Indian identity was a considered one.

Iqbal's criminal record is mild compared to those of his brothers. Arrested in connection with a murder in Mumbai's Agripada area in 1983, he was granted bail. If the other murder cases too weaken-perhaps with prosecution witnesses being "nudged" into turning hostile-Iqbal could be a "free and respectable" Mumbai citizen once more, expanding the D-Company into legitimate areas.

The Mumbai Police is already working towards pricking this Dawood trial balloon. It is consulting lawyers on whether it can charge Iqbal under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act as well. As a senior Indian intelligence official puts it, "There is more to this case than meets the eye." It's Dawood who is winking.