Home Minister L K Advani has directed the officials to probe Sharma's links with the leaders from various political parties and also about the Delhi police's alleged ``go-slow'' approach on the man all these months.

It is alleged that three top city police officials, including an additional commissioner and two deputy commissioners, knew about Sharma receiving telephone calls from Chotta Shakeel (Dawood Ibrahim aide) at his Mayfair Gardens house in January 1997 but did precious little about it.

Investigators claim they have clinching evidence of Sharma's active association with Dawood during the past four years. One of the incriminating evidence suggests that immediately after the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai, Sharma had secured a passport for Dawood's mother Amina Bi within 24 hours. She was brought to Delhi from Mumbai and she flew to Dubai thesame day.The CBI-IB probe team, to be formed shortly, will go into all these aspects. Home Secretary B P Singh is reportedly giving final touches to the team which would have four-five top-ranking investigators from the two Central agencies.

However, there are apprehensions about the probe team in various quarters. A Congress leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, asked ``if the investigators from CBI and IB would also probe BJP leaders' alleged links with Sharma.'' ``A prominent non-BJP leader who is close to the ruling party is also known to have been close to Sharma. We expect the investigations to be fair on all counts,'' he said.

The special team, sources say, would focus on some basic questions: How could Romesh Sharma, sitting pretty in the heart of the Capital, proceed unhindered with his operations? And secondly, why did the police choose to look the other way when it stumbled on concrete evidence establishing Sharma's links with Dawood.

Going by the allegations and counter-allegations,Sharma was in the good books of numerous politicians. According to his own admission to the police they include leaders from the BJP and the Congress, among others.