Return Of The Native
No one ever becomes extremely wicked suddenly. How we shape in life, or we have a good or evil name, depends upon our choice of associates and friends. The don, Abu Salem, who is in the centre of news, had a very humble origin and beginning in life. He started as a driver and went on to become the right hand man of Dawood Ibrahim, who asked him to look after his Bollywood operations, as an extortionist, contact man and hit man. This was apart, from his extorting protection money, from the shop keepers in Andheri Mumbai.

As everybody is keen to impress his boss, he organised a number of stage shows for film stars in Dubai to impress Dawood. After his involvement in Mumbai Bomb Blasts on 12th March, 1993, he left Mumbai and shifted to Dubai. Probably he felt that it would be better to start his own gang and crime syndicate, especially after his reported difference with Dawood. So he went on his own, for all criminal operations. He is wanted, for his involvement in the murder of T-Series owner Gulshan Kumar in 1997. He is also reported to have master minded the attack on film producer Rajiv Rai in 1997 , as well as in the murder of actor Manisha Koirala's secretary Ajit Dewani in 2001. Other activities in which he is reported, to have a hand, is the attack on film producers Rakesh Roshan, Manmohan Shetty and the murder of Mumbai¬ based builders Om Prakash Kukreja and Pradeep Jain. He is involved in one way or the other in over in over 50 criminal cases.

Though he is involved in over fifty cases, his extradition has been done for the following eight cases

CBI Cases
Mumbai blasts case; in which voluminous paper work was to be done. To give an idea, of the mammoth size of the case, the chargesheet in Bombay blast case ran into over 1,400 pages. As enclosures, it had 13,000 pages of statements given by 684 witnesses and 9,192 pages of statements given by 122 accused. It is the most voluminous case in Indian Legal History. As the bomb blasts took place at various places in Mumbai, Thane and Raigad, so the cases had to be registered at 27 different police stations. This case led, to the first ever arrest, of senior customs officials, including an Additional collec¬tor of Customs (Marine and Preven¬tive), one assistant collector of Cus¬toms, two superintendents of Customs, one Customs inspector, two police sub-inspectors and seven constables. Other cases include getting passports for himself and Monica from Lucknow; as well as from Hyderabad and Bhopal.

It should not appear as surprising, as indulging in crime, whether murder or extortion was his profession, by which he made it big. The biggest crime indulged in by him and his associates has been responsible for the cold blooded murder of 267 victims in Bombay. He really made a fortune, by committing crime. It is reported, that he has a bank balance of over Rs. 1000 Crores, which puts him in the league of 50 top rich Indians. Making money from crime, and murder, was his full time avocation. He has been remanded to CBI custody till the 25th of November, 2005. He will have a lot of explaining to do about Bombay blast case, his role as the key aide of Dawood Ibrahim, as well as the members of the gang net work and what part was played by each member of Dawood gang. Abu Salem can be a wealthy mine of information about the role of gangsters, not only in film industry, but also in cricket match fixing, where the name of the top cricketers had cropped up.

Abu Salem can give valuable infor¬mation about the assault on film producers, like Rakesh Roshan, who refused to part with the overseas rights of his film 'Kaha Na Pyaar Hai', as well as the extortion calls made to a Film-makers J P Dutta and Subhash Ghai. It is reported that threatening calls were made to Ghai before the release of 'Pardes', starring Shah Rukh Khan and Mahima Choudhary. Similarly actor and producer Aamir Khan was also reportedly threatened and asked to part with the overseas rights of his film 'Lagaan'. Abu Salem will have to explain his role in this as well as his role in the murder of producer Mukesh Duggal, who was suspected to be his front man, but had double-crossed him.

- Joginder Singh, IPS (Retd.) Former Director, CBI, India, 123-124,
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