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Journalism of Courage
Mumbai Police failed to produce him in 6-year-old case
A city court on Friday issued a fresh production warrant against underworld don Abu Salem after the Mumbai Police failed to produce him before it in a six-year-old extortion case. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaweri Baweja has now asked Mumbai Police to produce Salem before the court on January 16.
Earlier, on November 26, the Mumbai Police had given an undertaking to ensure Salem’s presence here on the next date of hearing. However, the TADA court hearing the 1993 Mumbai blast case did not allow sending Salem here as the case is in its final stages, said an official.
The Special Cell of Delhi Police had registered a case of extortion and criminal intimidation against Salem and his alleged associates Ishtiyaq Ahmed and Chander Prakash in 2002. The trio is accused of making extortion calls to one Rajat Nagrath, a south Delhi-based businessman, and demanding a ransom of Rs one crore. An FIR in the case, based on Nagrath’s complaint, was registered at the Lodhi Colony police station in South Delhi. Ahmed and Prakash are lodged in Bhopal jail while Salem has been kept at Arthur Road jail in Mumbai.
Salem, who was extradited from Portugal in 2005, is also one of the accused in a MCOCA case registered in 2002 for allegedly attempting to extort Rs 5 crore from Delhi-based contractor Ashok Gupta.
A separate court at the Patiala House court complex here, trying the MCOCA case, has also issued a production warrant against him for December 12. Salem, however, could not be produced in the Patiala House court today, as the court refused to advance the date of his hearing saying it had not received the requisite sanction from the Lt Governor to conduct trial under the special laws.
Salem is facing trial here in eight cases including, the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts and two murder cases.
