This is not the first time that unconfirmed news of Dawood Ibrahim being critical or dead has been circulated. If you look at past reports, India’s most-wanted criminal must have died multiple times.

Karachi: Is underworld don Dawood Ibrahim dead or alive? Social media on Monday went abuzz after unconfirmed reports of Dawood Ibrahim being ‘poisoned’ and admitted to a hospital surfaced on social media. While some reports said he is dead, other reports claimed he has been admitted to hospital after being poisoned.

However, Chhota Shakeel, a close aide of Dawood Ibrahim, denied all these reports and said these reports as baseless and assured that “Bhai is 1000 per cent fit”, a TOI report said.

Notably, this is not the first time that unconfirmed news of Dawood Ibrahim being critical or dead has been circulated. If you look at past reports, India’s most-wanted criminal must have died multiple times.

It should be noted that the life of Dawood Ibrahim, who is the most-wanted gangster in India, has been shrouded in secrecy for the past many years. Earlier, India has said it has irrefutable evidence that Dawood is based in Karachi.

Earlier reports claimed that the underworld don contracted Covid-19 or suffered a heart attack and died, however, his gang rejected such claims and asserted that their boss was alive and well. The recurring cycle of rumours of his death on social media have proven to be unfounded many times.

In 2020, Pakistan unwittingly admitted that Dawood was in its territory when it submitted a list to global anti-terror funding body Financial Action Task Force (FATF) with his name in it.

While the unconfirmed reports of Dawood Ibrahim’s ‘poisoning’ have certainly created chatter on social media, here are some previous instances when the underworld don was said to have ‘died’.

Reports in 2020 emerged saying that Dawood Ibrahim and his wife got Covid-19, with some even claiming he had passed away from the virus. However, these proved to be false. But, the infection did take the life of Dawood Ibrahim’s nephew Siraj Kaskar in Karachi.

There were reports in 2017 that Dawood Ibrahim died of a heart attack. Other reports suggested he had a brain tumour that led to his worsening health. However, the reports later proved to be false. His right-hand man, Chota Shakeel, said the underworld don was in good health.

In 2026, there was another report on social media that Dawood Ibrahim got gangrene on his legs and doctors might have had to amputate them. But, these reports also turned out to be fake as well.