Anees Ibrahim may have slipped away for now but the Mumbai police have decided to be prepared for extradition battles of the future. On Wednesday, they set up an extradition cell in the crime branch. The cell is headed by Senior Inspector V.P. Kadam and comprise two inspectors, four sub-inspectors and 10 constables.Now there won’t be any last-minute rush looking for lost FIRs and fingerprints. The cell was set up immediately after a controversy erupted over tracing Anees’s fingerprints. They were discovered after a three-day search.The Fingerprint Bureau has more than 1.5 lakh prints collected over 70 years and the bureau is now being computerised. Also, the crime branch was unable to find out which police station arrested Anees in Mumbai in the ’80s.The cell will be under the direct supervision of Joint Commissiner of Police (crime) Sridhar Vagal. It will coordinate with the Central Bureuau of Investigation (CBI).The cell will collect the details of all wanted criminals settled abroad. The dossier will have details of crime, earlier photographs and names of associates. ‘‘The cell has been started to speed up the documentation. After Abu Salem’s arrest, the police had faced a lot of problems gathering evidence. So we have set up a special cell to look after everything,’’ said Vagal.
