Abu Lais—gangster Abu Salem’s younger brother—met the 36-year-old extradited don for the third time in over 20 years at the Bhoiwada lock-up today. The meeting was brief and the 34-year-old Lais looked troubled when he emerged. ‘‘My ailing mother back home saw Salem on TV and sent me to Mumbai to check up on him,’’ he said. ‘‘Salem too has asked about home and our mother.’’ Not counting the time they met at court for a few brief minutes in November, Lais says this is the second time the two have met since Salem left home in 1984. The five siblings—children of an Uttar Pradesh lawyer and a homemaker—Abu Hakim, Abu Salem, Abu Lais, Abu Jais and a sister who is now married were never very close. But the brothers all live together at the ancestral home in Azamghar. And sources close to the family say Salem ensured that the fruits of his underworld success percolated down to them over the years. Salem left Azamghar in 1984, aged 15. He had dropped out of school soon after their father died, a few years prior to his leaving. ‘‘I was very young then and I don’t remember anything,’’ said Lais. ‘‘He wrote home sometimes, to our mother, but I don’t know what he said in those letters.’’ All the siblings are Std IV dropouts from the local primary Islah School in Sarai Mir and Lais remembers Salem as an ‘‘extremely sensitive teenager’’. ‘‘When our father’s elder brother Ali Ahmed took over the family’s land and shops, Salembhai dropped out of school and went off to look for a job,’’ Lais recalled. ‘‘The family made some attempts to look for him, but never found him.’’ Sources close to the family said Salem returned later the same year to visit and thereafter visited briefly every two or three months—including one visit after the 1993 serial blasts. But, they added, he never told them too much about his life and the family never even knew of his two marriages. As Salem ascended the underworld hierarchy, the sources said, family members even enjoyed increased clout back home, with the gangster even setting up a trust through which he sent them money. Lais, however, is adamant that the family never profited from Salem’s activities. ‘‘Our family did not benefit financially because of Salem. Our father had shops which have been rented out and we have fields,’’ said Lais. ‘‘Even today, the situation is the same as it has always been.’’
