My Name is Abu Salem

by S. Hussain Zaidi

  Twenty-Nine

  Salem’s Sojourn to Sarai Mir

  THERE WERE TWENTY-FIVE ARMED MEN. THEY entered the general compartment and at once evicted all its occupants. Panic filled Bogie Number 1093 of the Mahanagari Express. Perhaps it was a train-jacking, the passengers thought to themselves. But their fears proved to be unfounded. The armed men were members of the Mumbai Police and probably belonged to the security detail of a VIP or possibly some local politician.

  But they were wrong. The armed men in uniform were actually part of a security set-up for Abu Salem. On 11 October 2007, Salem was granted special permission to attend the funeral of his sixty-five-year-old mother, Jannatunissa, who had died of various illnesses two days earlier. Salem moved court on 10 October and was granted permission to leave the next day. Salem could make it only on 12 October.

  In a hastily obtained order, the court gave him special permission to visit his ancestral village of Sarai Mir in Azamgarh. Since the Mahanagari Express was the first available train, the cops decided to take over almost half the general compartment and cordon it off with a rope to prevent any passenger from approaching their ‘special cargo’. After this was done, the cops finally let the curious passengers occupy the other half of the compartment.

  It was a calculated risk for the cops to escort Salem in the general compartment and they faced major flak from the media. Despite being accused of negligence, the police could not care less. The escort party was armed to its teeth, carrying carbines, rifles and guns. It was led by commandos and two senior officers of the Local Arms–II of the Mumbai Police. And they were quite used to last-minute travel arrangements and escorting high-risk individuals in long-distance trains. There had been very few untoward incidents reported, apart from the killing of Arun Gawli’s aide Tanya Koli on the Vidarbha Express by gunmen from a rival gang.

  As the train pulled in at the Varanasi station, the police did not use the common exit route on the platform, but asked Salem to alight from the opposite side, on the tracks. Since the platform was going to be far too congested and moving around in the crowd would have been risky, the isolated train tracks seemed to be a safer option. Salem got off the train twenty minutes after the other passengers, and the police led him into a waiting armoured van.

  As Salem walked out, he saw a sea of people jostling with one another, waiting to catch a glimpse of the don. Clad in a casual white shirt, jeans and a cap, Salem enjoyed the attention he was receiving. In fact, he almost felt like a film star. He looked directly into the television cameras and smiled for them without shying away for even a moment. There wasn’t a trace of shame or remorse in his eyes. He climbed into the government-issued Tata armoured van—with its reinforced doors—and then looked sheepishly out from behind the grilles. It looked like one of Mumbai’s most powerful gangsters had been caged, defanged and declawed.

  This made for great television and was repeated over and over for the next few days across news channels. After a little while, the vehicle drove off as part of a convoy of eight cars; with police personnel riding on bikes on either side of the van. The security detail would have given any politician a complex, particularly if they had been told it wasn’t a VIP, but a gangster who was being accorded this treatment on the ninety-six-kilometre road to the sleepy village of Sarai Mir.

  Sarai Mir is well known in Islamic educational circles because of its clutch of madrasas. The region had nurtured a rather communal mindset. The residents of this underdeveloped village, many of whom lived below the poverty line, were staunch Muslims who were slowly being radicalized. And thanks to Salem, Sarai Mir was now even more infamous. But the crowd took pride in this reputation and even felt good about being known because of Salem’s shenanigans.

  The crowd at Sarai Mir that waited for the gangster was overwhelming. An estimated ten thousand people had gathered that afternoon. It was the holy month of Ramzan. The Hilal Committee (the organization that reports on the sighting of the moon and declares Eid) had announced Eid to be two days later. The day Salem returned to his village was Jummatul Wida (the last Friday of Ramzan, which has special significance for Muslims), but instead of spending time in spiritual pursuits, the devout Muslims had begun converging in the Pathan Tola area where Salem had built a palatial house across his comparatively spartan ancestral home.

  It seemed more like the funeral of a spiritual leader than that of the mother of a gangster. Salem himself was amazed at the crowds and saw this as a mark of his popularity. He raised his right hand and waved gently as he stepped out of the police van. The crowd erupted. The police guided him through the ruckus and brought him to the Baitul Uloom (the abode of knowledge) madrasa, where he was going to conduct his mother’s last rites. Almost everyone who had followed him to the spot joined in to observe the namaz-e-janaza—the last ceremonial namaz performed for the dead before burial.

  At the conclusion of the final prayers, Salem, along with three others, carried the bier on his shoulders and walked towards the dusty graveyard. The Barodi kabrastan was three kilometres away from their house and it took them over an hour to get there on foot. All the while, twenty-five policemen guarded him and the others simply followed. As he emerged from the graveyard after the burial of his mother, a television reporter accosted him and asked him to say ‘do lafz’ (two words) on his mother’s death. ‘Maa toh maa hoti hai,’ Salem said solemnly into the microphone as he looked into the camera. After a brief pause, he continued, ‘Do lafzon mein bayaan nahin kiya ja sakta.’ (A mother is a mother and her loss cannot be described in two words.)

  After the burial, Salem returned to his home. It was a large white mansion, one of the most handsome buildings in the vicinity, surrounded by a barren playground, short trees, several raw-brick buildings and shaky housing societies. Salem walked up to his terrace, surrounded by cops and his own cronies. Clad in a green T-shirt, he leaned against the railing in the balcony and waved to the sea of people who had gathered below. People in the neighbouring buildings stood at their balconies to watch a man who was famous for all the wrong reasons. Salem smiled confidently, as his entire entourage surrounded him on the balcony. He put a foot on the railing to raise himself and then waved again like a film star.

  ‘Salaam alaikum,’ Salam said loudly.

  ‘Walaikum salaam,’ the collective reply reverberated. Salem had begun using his newfound stardom to the hilt. As he was taken to his various court hearings across India—in the general compartment of the train like he had been to Azamgarh—people would approach him for his autograph. Ironically, Salem’s biggest fan base comprised youths in their twenties. Salem flashed them his big smile, shook hands with them and signed autographs for them. In some cases, when his admirers did not have a piece of paper, they offered him currency notes—of Rs 100, Rs 50, Rs 10—for him to sign on. Salem would happily sign on them and declare generously, ‘Preserve the note with my signature. When I am released from jail, I will give you back hundred times the value of the note bearing my signature.’

  After this, it became a common sight at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus or Bandra Terminus, the starting point for his journeys or even at Vashi Hospital where he went for routine medical check-ups. Everyone wanted Salem’s initials on an Indian currency note. These train journeys and mass admiration became Salem’s drug of choice to escape his jail travails. Laid low by the abandonment by Monica and the death of his mother, he now began to revive, reimagining himself as an Indian superstar.

  Thirty

  Salem’s One-Woman Army

  ADVOCATE SHAHID AZMI WAS ONE OF the most controversial lawyers in Mumbai’s legal circles. As a teenager, Shahid had crossed the border and received terror training in Pakistan and was subsequently charged under TADA. However, he was later acquitted by the Supreme Court. During his incarceration, he studied law and resolved to defend only those who were wrongly accused of terror charges. In a brief legal practice that lasted seven years, Shahid managed to get seventeen acquittals.

  Like Sal
em, Shahid was also from Azamgarh. The don had heard of the lawyer’s resounding victories and wanted him to defend him. Shahid refused. Around that time, advocate Saba Qureshi joined Shahid as a partner in his firm. Saba was barely twenty-eight years old, but her astuteness belied her age. She found that Shahid charged barely Rs 5000 for the terror cases which would take him months or years of hard work to turn around. Saba convinced him to charge a higher amount, and her influence eventually resulted in the lifelong train commuter buying himself a car. Saba also advised him to organize his legal work and take on cases other than defending those accused of terrorism. Shahid was impressed and smitten by Saba and proposed marriage. She readily agreed.

  Their marriage was only a few months away when fate scripted Shahid’s and Saba’s story differently. On 11 February 2010, while Shahid was at his office in Taximen’s Colony in Kurla, a suburb along the eastern spine of Mumbai, four assailants led by Devendra Jagtap barged in and shot him dead. Criminal lawyers had been killed in the past, but they usually had a suspicious record and dealings with the underworld. Shahid was a clean lawyer with no connection with them.

  The Mumbai Police arrested the four assailants, including Jagtap, and claimed that they belonged to the Bharat Nepali gang. It was alleged that Shahid’s killing might have been the Indian government’s way of silencing a detractor since he managed to defend the terror-accused and get them acquittals, causing deep embarrassment to the state. His murder is still a mystery. Years later, director Hansal Mehta made a movie on his life by the title Shahid with actor Rajkumar Rao playing the slain advocate’s character.

  Shahid’s death drew the attention of the media and legal fraternity towards his reclusive partner, Saba. Her career was strong as well. She managed to get two Indians accused of conspiracy in the 26/11 attacks acquitted and provided logistical support to Ajmal Kasab and other terrorists. This not only earned her accolades, but got her noticed in legal circles.

  One of Saba’s clients was a man named Amit who was accused in a murder and kidnapping case. Amit delayed paying Saba’s legal fee, finally telling her that Salem would pay on his behalf. Saba remained reluctant to ask Salem for money and began to contemplate quitting the profession altogether. Shahid’s death had made her lose interest in legal work. Salem sent her message after message and she kept ignoring them. Finally, when she couldn’t ignore the deluge of messages any more, she decided to meet him.

  Saba was known to be impertinent, fiery, blunt and often a very outspoken lawyer. In fact, she had even misbehaved with some of the judges in their chambers, earning their wrath. This had made her quite unpopular in the fraternity, but her work and professionalism was such that no one could point a finger at her. Salem could not believe that this woman dared to talk to him in such a brusque manner. During their conversation, Salem learnt that Saba had been Shahid’s partner and senior to Shahid. He immediately warmed up to her and offered her his brief. Saba was initially disinterested, but rose to the challenge when Salem asked, ‘Are you scared to take my brief because you are a woman?’ Saba had to prove him wrong.

  ‘I may be a woman and not as experienced as the others, but I can turn your case around as none of your earlier lawyers did,’ Saba retorted. Salem also boasted to her that had Shahid agreed to defend him, no gangster would have dared to kill him. But Salem was wrong. Within a few years of Shahid’s killing, the same shooter Jagtap assaulted Salem in the high-security prison at Taloja.

  Lawyers were making a beeline to represent Salem, knowing they would be in the limelight for defending such a high-profile client. However, Salem was not keen on hiring them; he was looking for top-notch lawyers such as Nitin Pradhan, who had represented over a hundred accused in the Mumbai serial blasts, and Majeed Memon, who later became a Rajya Sabha member. Sudeep Pasbola, regarded as one of the most proficient criminal lawyers in the city, was also among his battery of legal eagles.

  Saba was the youngest and the least experienced of the lot. She was also perhaps the only one who was not in awe of Salem. Salem began to trust her almost blindly and delegated a lot of important work to her, including having her represent him in the Portuguese courts. Soon, she managed to notice major anomalies and discrepancies in the case. Saba managed to convince the Portuguese court through local counsels that the Indian government had violated the assurance it had given of prosecuting Salem only for the nine named cases; she sought that the Indian government stick to the charges approved by the Portuguese court.

  For instance, one of the major accusations against Salem in the serial blasts case was that of delivering weapons to Sanjay Dutt. The Lisbon authorities had approved of charging him only under the Arms Act and for illegal possession of weapons. But the CBI also charged him with conspiracy in the blasts case which would attract the death penalty. Saba managed to change the game for Salem and turn the tables in his favour.

  On 14 September 2011, the Tribunal Da Relação de Lisboa, the Portugal High Court, declared, ‘In view of what has been stated above, judges of the third bench of this high court consider that the Indian Union while accusing and judging Abu Salem Qayyum Ansari for the fact described in points 3 to 8 of the new accusation framed under the case RC-1/93 CBI STF Mumbai violated the principle of specialty as it is understood in the Portuguese legal system, reason for which it considers these acts as illegal and decided to terminate authorization granted for extradition of Abu Salem Qayyum Ansari.’

  The verdict threw the Indian government and the prosecution into a tizzy. Saba moved an application on 26 September 2011 in the courts saying that since the Portugal courts had terminated the extradition, Salem would no longer go to court. This infuriated the courts and the government. They were not willing to kowtow to the Portugal High Court and its diktat. Salem then demanded, on Saba’s advice, to be shifted to the Portuguese consulate until the matter was resolved between the two governments.

  The Indian government moved the Portugal Supreme Court challenging the High Court order. In its appeal before the Portuguese Supreme Court, the Indian government argued that the interpretation of the Portuguese High Court of the trial in various courts of the country was not correct and assured Portugal that the fresh charges levelled against Salem attracted a lesser jail term than the offences for which he had been extradited.

  The Indian government made a dual appeal. One appeal was made on behalf of the Republic of India and its right to prosecute its accused, while the other was made by the public prosecutor. However, when a three-judge Supreme Court bench in Portugal presided over the matter, they first rejected the petition of the Indian government and its claims to privilege and rights of a sovereign nation. The government was asked to channel its pleas through a public prosecutor.

  While hearing the plea of the prosecutor, the Supreme Court felt that the Indian government had indeed violated its executive promise and breached the terms of extradition. The three-judge bench unanimously agreed and upheld the termination of extradition. Two of them also sought that Salem be sent back immediately. However, the third judge said that there was no provision in the law to recall an extradited accused. Since there was no such precedent of violation and the Indian government was the first such violator of extraditions terms, the recall of Salem would be pursued through diplomatic channels.

  The Supreme Court of Portugal passed its verdict on 11 January 2012. This came as a major shot in the arm for Salem and his defence team. But the Indian government refused to bow down to Portuguese hegemony. They immediately approached the Constitutional Court and appealed on the grounds that the Indian government, as a sovereign entity, had the privilege and prerogative to try its accused as per the norms and customs of the country’s judicial system. The termination of extradition would therefore actually undermine the prerogative of the government. However, in its verdict on 5 July 2012, the Constitutional Court, which is actually on par with the Supreme Court of Portugal, conformed with the orders of all the earlier courts. This put the Indian government in a further fi
x.

  Saba has already planned her next move to stay ahead of the Indian government and has moved to approach the European Union. This will not only make the task of judging Salem much more complicated for the agencies, but it will also heap more embarrassment on the government. Meanwhile, Salem’s increasing trust in his young lady lawyer had got gossipmongers working overtime. Still mourning for Shahid, Saba began to get agitated at the wild allegations and rumours. ‘Salem is only a client, please don’t associate any other relationship to this,’ she screamed in open court one day to a senior counsel.

  Thirty-One

  Surviving Reprisals

  THE SHRILL SIREN SENT THE GUARDS at the Mumbai Central Prison into a panic and they ran towards the high-security barrack number 10. Two men were jostling on the ground and were separated amid much shouting and flinging of expletives. Salem was bleeding from his nose, chin, neck and arms. Mustafa Dossa stood there smugly, a bloodstained aluminium spoon in his hand. Nobody knows exactly how the scuffle began, but from the sharpened spoon, it was obvious that it was a pre-planned attack.

  Salem was kept in barrack number 10 after a brief confinement in the Anda Cell. Over the five years, Salem had grown comfortable in his cell and had begun to see it as home. He had managed to get in some gym equipment, his designer clothes, stack of files, and some luxury essentials. He had also managed to get Italian marble fitted on the floor. Former associates and acquaintances had themselves shifted to the barracks around his, making his life that much more comfortable. His driver Mehndi Hassan, and Javed Siddiqui were housed close to him.