Deport Abu Salem: CBI

MUMBAI, August 25: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has asked for the deportation of Abu Salem, the trusted lieutenant of Dawood I...

MUMBAI, August 25: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has asked for the deportation of Abu Salem, the trusted lieutenant of Dawood Ibrahim from Dubai and has cited the murder of music baron Gulshan Kumar as the reason.

Senior police officials in Mumbai explained that such an “extreme” step had been taken by them since there were as many as 34 requests for extradition pending against many Mumbai-based mafia leaders in various countries and there was no sign of these wanted men being brought back to Indian shores.

“We are tired of waiting for criminals to be extradited, so this time we decided to step up the pressure and ask for deportation,” one top official informed.

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“We are hoping Interpol will act quickly and criminal proceedings against Abu Salem will begin soon.”

The CBI’s message to the Interpol division in Abu Dhabi was sent on August 15, three days after Gulshan Kumar was gunned down outside a temple by three assailants.

The two-page message to the Interpol, signed by a CBI Assistant Director, H C Singh, states that Abu Salem Abdul Qayoom Ansari, residing in Dubai, was wanted by the judicial authorities in India for criminal conspiracy, murder, extortion by “putting the fear of death” in people as well as various other offences committed in Mumbai.

The message cites numbers of two arrest warrants issued against Abu Salem on August 14 and also mentions his telephone number in Dubai. The Interpol has now been urgently asked to “locate, arrest and deport” the suspect to India.

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There is also a brief mention of Abu Salem’s pending case of extradition with the Interpol. The extradition request for Abu Salem was filed after the March 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai and has since been hanging fire. The precise charge against Salem was that he had procured nine AK-56 rifles used for the blasts. Subsequently, the Interpol had issued a red-corner notice for him in 1995.

The request for deportation confirms what earlier seemed like the suspicion of the Mumbai police that the 29-year old bank employee-turned-mafia leader had been the brain behind the murder of the cassette king. Mumbai police now have information that Alu Salem had himself telephoned Gulshan Kumar from his hideout in Dubai and demanded a huge sum from him.

One day, the two even had a 45-minute-long telephonic conversation.

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More

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