My Name is Abu Salem

by S. Hussain Zaidi

  After years on the run from the police, Anis, and perhaps even from himself, Salem yearned for a chat with someone. And so he began to speak freely with Pardesi and related to him tales of his family and Monica. She, on the other hand, had no desire to speak at all and buried herself in her Bible.

  The tyres of the huge cargo plane hit the tarmac at Mumbai’s Sahar International Airport at 7.30 a.m., much to the relief of Pardesi and Chhatwal. They had managed to bring Salem home without a hitch. At the airport, they were greeted by agents from the IB who swiftly took Salem to one side and grilled him for over an hour and a half.

  Eventually, the CBI ran out of patience and told the IB officials to back off. Salem and Monica were escorted out of the airport in a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) jeep. The CISF is a paramilitary force assigned the task of protecting airports across the country. Once outside the airport, they were put in a different vehicle and taken across town to a vacant bungalow—normally used by a minister—in Nariman Point. This was the makeshift office of the CBI Special Task Force investigating the Mumbai serial blasts of 1993.

  Abu Salem had returned to Mumbai. He was finally back in the city that taught him his trade and made him the dreaded and feared gangster that he was.

  Twenty-Six

  The New Jersey Connection

  THE COURTROOM WAS PACKED TO THE rafters. The tension was palpable.

  The hundred accused of the Mumbai serial blasts were present in the court and so were over a dozen lawyers and several CBI officers. The specially designated TADA courtroom wore an air of eerie grimness.

  At the centre of attention were two distinctly different men, regarded as frenemies of sorts. Film actor Sanjay Dutt was riding high on the recent success of Munnabhai MBBS—his comeback vehicle to stardom. The other was Salem—clean-shaven, nattily dressed, wearing nice shoes, sporting gelled hair and smelling of expensive cologne, quite in contrast to the morose and weary Sanjay. Salem, unlike his former friend, was smiling, displaying his characteristic chirpy disposition.

  Sanjay and Salem were of course good friends once upon a time—Salem in complete awe of Sanjay and the star enjoying the attention. The running joke in the Mumbai underworld had been that Salem did not bathe for three days after having delivered the AK-56 to Sanjay Dutt before the riots. After that, the two had kept in touch over the phone and met several times in Dubai during Sanjay’s foreign shoots or events. Their friendship was in fact a much-discussed subject within the Bollywood–mafia circles.

  But times change. Those who know Sanjay claimed he had grown uncomfortable with Salem. Salem often used intimidation and coercion to retain Sanjay as a friend, something the star detested. It wasn’t the same case with Chhota Shakeel, Salem’s arch-enemy and Dawood Ibrahim’s right-hand man, with whom Sanjay shared an easy, comfortable equation. A telephone conversation recorded on 14 July 2002 exposed Sanjay Dutt’s connections with Shakeel. The transcripts would later be produced in the MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act) court where Sanjay would have to explain them away by saying he was too drunk and didn’t have the slightest clue who he was talking to.

  Salem had by then fallen out with his former boss Anis Ibrahim and was aware that he and Shakeel were stalking him at every turn. What he did not know was that they had also allegedly involved his one-time friend Sanjay Dutt in a plot to eliminate him in New Jersey. For the record, the actor has always denied his involvement in such a conspiracy.

  According to unconfirmed reports, Salem had told his old friend Sanjay that he would attend one of the star-studded live Bollywood shows in New Jersey. Salem wanted to drop by and say hello to Sanjay and his other ‘friends’ in Bollywood. After all, this was 2001 and he was living inconspicuously in the US. Not many in Bollywood knew that Salem was trying to settle down in Chicago and was making efforts to extend his base to Los Angeles and New Jersey.

  Salem had confided only in Sanjay about his plans to attend the event. Maybe he wanted to make it seem like a casual visit to a ‘Bollywood night’ while he was on a trip to the US, and wanted to give away nothing about his whereabouts in the country. At the very last minute, however, the gangster received some chilling intelligence and cancelled his visit to the event. Chhota Shakeel had hatched a plot to kill Salem in New Jersey, he was told. Shakeel’s gunmen had conducted a recce of the stadium and were planning to strike as soon as Salem appeared at the glittering event. Salem had heard that it was Sanjay who had tipped Shakeel off about his expected presence at the event.

  Salem was only too well aware of Shakeel’s skills and resourcefulness, and how well he could plan an attack. Only a few months ago, on 15 September 2000, Shakeel had orchestrated an audacious attack on Chhota Rajan in his den in Bangkok. Rajan had survived by the skin of his teeth. Salem decided to cancel his visit to New Jersey, but harboured a massive grudge against Sanjay and had decided to punish him for his treachery and betrayal.

  A few months later, Salem organized four gunmen to ‘take care of’ Sanjay. The actor was in Goa at the time, along with friend and director of Kaante, Sanjay Gupta, known to him as Gups. Salem’s instructions to his boys were clear: Go after Sanjay and kill him in Goa or at Mumbai airport upon his return. But Sanjay and Gups heard of the planned hit and desperately began working the phones to get help. They asked several friends of Salem’s to mediate, but these men found Salem in no mood to forgive Sanjay Dutt.

  Sanjay and Gups remained holed up in the hotel room until they managed to get hold of a close friend of Salem’s in Mumbai by the name of Akbar Khan. This man had helped Salem in the days when the don was on the run from the Mumbai Police after the serial blasts. Khan had helped Salem cross the border and had even driven him to Kathmandu in his own car. It was a huge risk for him to take and Salem was so grateful to Khan that he never refused him a thing.

  When Gups asked Khan to intervene, the latter agreed. After all, who would not want to oblige a successful and affluent film-maker? Khan called up Salem and asked him to rein in his shooters. Salem was furious, but also couldn’t say no to Khan. He told him that his hitmen would not touch the two Sanjays so long as they travelled in Khan’s car. The news of amnesty was conveyed to the beleaguered actor–director duo, much to their immense relief. They managed to reach Mumbai airport and Khan ferried them across town in his Hyundai Santro, saving them from the wrath of Salem and his shooters.

  Khan was no Good Samaritan. Over the next few months, he regularly visited Sanjay Gupta’s plush office in Lokhandwala and took lakhs of rupees for something or the other, part of the unwritten price for his help. Gupta resented it, but shelled out the money quietly. He could hardly irk Khan and invite bad luck home. While Khan extracted hard cash from Gupta, he ensured that Sanjay Dutt, whose market price at the time was a couple of crores per film, worked in his own movie for free. Market analysts dubbed the movie as the most disastrous of Sanjay’s career and wondered what made him take up the movie just as his career was peaking.

  Salem later boasted that he decided to forgive Sanjay because the actor had called him on his satellite phone (which used to cost Rs 1000 per minute for a call) and tearfully sought his forgiveness. Salem would boast about this incident, saying to his audience that he had decided to forget Sanjay’s betrayal out of the goodness of his heart.

  Two things were clear from these incidents: firstly, Salem and Sanjay were no longer friends. Two, Salem was gunning for Sanjay. The veracity of Salem’s claim of forgiving Sanjay could never be verified though. That’s why in court, the actor decided to avoid Salem and preferred to take a seat on the last bench along with a few of the accused. The officers from the ATS who had surrounded Salem from all sides (for his own safety) were also there to ensure that Salem did not abuse Sanjay in any way.

  Soon after the serial blasts case charge sheet was filed on 4 November 1993 at the TADA court (in the Mumbai sessions court near Colaba), the city police were faced with the massive problem of security. The case involved over two hundred accuse
d, over a thousand witnesses, and scores of lawyers and police personnel.

  It was going to be a major challenge to ferry all these accused from Arthur Road Jail to Colaba on a daily basis. This would involve several dozen vehicles and complicated security paraphernalia. Any security glitch would easily result in a major catastrophe for the city which was still recovering from the serial blasts. The police were not willing to take any chances.

  So, in an unprecedented step, the state government vacated a major portion of the Arthur Road Jail and dedicated it for the specially designated TADA court meant only for the serial blasts trial. This arrangement allowed the accused to meet their lawyers in the court premises itself. Relatives could also drop in to meet the accused. This section of the jail sprawled across acres of land and some of the accused even discovered nooks and crannies to grab an intimate moment or two with their wives, right within the court premises.

  But Sanjay, of course, was too prominent a personality to hide in some secluded corner. He knew that he had to go through the motions of paying obeisance to the don. During the recess, several accused hugged Salem and greeted him with extreme cordiality, some of them fawning over him. Sanjay remained standing in a corner. Salem was, in fact, eager to meet Sanjay or at least give him his famous glare that was capable of having a spine-chilling effect on the recipient. Eventually, as he came down the stairs along with his ATS escorts, he spotted Sanjay standing there. It was quite an awkward moment for Sanjay, although Salem kept smiling.

  Not knowing what to say to dispel the awkwardness, Sanjay took the initiative and said, ‘Salaam alaikum, bhai.’ Salem promptly replied, ‘Walaikum salaam.’ Sanjay then asked, ‘Khairiyat?’ Salem merely nodded to this question about his well-being and moved on. The actor heaved a sigh of relief—the storm had passed and all was well.

  Having arrived in Mumbai on 10 November 2005, Salem was produced in the TADA court the next day. He preferred not to inform his family members of his arrival. At the time, he did not have a lawyer, but several lawyers of varying levels of skill were jostling for his attention. Salem was remanded to custody and Judge Pramod Kode was more than fair to him. Salem was allowed home food and other facilities during his time in the jail. Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told the court that the CBI’s Special Task Force which was spearheading the prosecution would file a supplementary charge sheet against Salem in the next thirty days. Judge Kode gave his nod for the time period.

  Salem was kept in the high-security anda cell—the egg-shaped enclosure in Arthur Road Jail—to protect him from any hostile gang rivals among the inmates. He hated it. Cramped space, discourteous staff, stinking toilets, mosquitoes, no bedsheets, and other such miseries threatened to make his incarceration insufferable. Slowly though, Salem began to settle in, especially when he came to the realization that jail authorities react positively to the stature and wealth of gang members. With everyone being respectful to Salem, he started enjoying his time in jail. The only thing Salem was missing was Monica and her love.

  Twenty-Seven

  Sameera Lashes Out

  SAMEERA JUMANI FILED FOR EX PARTE divorce from Salem exactly a month after his arrest in Lisbon, on 20 October 2005. The divorce suit was filed in the superior court of Gwinnett County, Georgia, USA. It was technically called the Marital Settlement Agreement where Sameera was the plaintiff; she filed it as Sabina Arsalan Ali against her defendant husband Abu Salem, who was identified as Arsalan Mohsin Ali, a Pakistani. The court dissolved the marriage and Sabina Ali was restored to her maiden name Sabina Azmi. It was the same fictitious identity that she had assumed when she had escaped from Mumbai in 1993.

  Salem executed a general power of attorney through an affidavit, as he was in prison. The power of attorney was meant to allow her to organize transfers of Salem’s property to herself. Salem clarified that he had done this freely and voluntarily for the support and benefit of his eight-year-old son, Amir. The decree clearly mentioned that Salem and Sameera were married on 5 January 1991 in Mumbai and retook their marriage vows on 4 March 2000 in Las Vegas, Nevada. It said, ‘The parties lived together as husband and wife until on or about March 05, 2001, when the defendant, without plaintiff, moved to Lisbon, Portugal, and the parties have remained in a bona fide state of separation ever since.’ The marriage had lasted exactly ten years and two months.

  Sheela Raval, one-time Editor Investigations with Star News, was in the US doing a story on Salem when the Portugal government was packing him off and Monica. She decided to track down Salem’s first wife and after several wild goose chases, landed at Sameera’s Georgia residence. Sheela said, ‘Sameera was terrified of her abusive husband’s wrath and yet she was eager to tell her story as she wanted the truth to come out. She firmly believed that the real perpetrator was let off the hook.’

  Sheela spoke to Sameera exclusively for six hours on various issues. The interview was aired on 18 November 2005 under the headlines Mera Pati Abu Salem and Salem’s Biwi No. 1. This is the only instance when Sameera bared her heart to a journalist and candidly spoke about Salem, giving an insight into his mind and personality.

  During the extensive interview, Sameera spoke about her ‘forced’ marriage to Salem, her relations with him, Monica Bedi’s role in their married life and the looming shadow of Dawood Ibrahim on Salem’s life. She described Salem’s insecurities and drew a picture of the gangster as a coward. She distanced herself from his activities, indicating that Monica was his accomplice while she was not connected with his work. She also said that she had been routinely beaten up by Salem and that he was a violent, ‘psychotic man’. She confirmed that Salem used to beat up Monica as well. ‘What Monica experienced for two years, I experienced for fifteen,’ she said. She also talked about how neglectful he had been of his son.

  Further, Sameera shed light on the social world of the gangster community. She spoke of how rivalries between gang members extended to their wives, about how Anis Ibrahim’s and Chhota Shakeel’s wives, like their husbands, never got along. She also narrated incidents after Salem broke away from Dawood and about how Anis barged into her house and threatened her. Sameera said she was scared of Salem and would have left him if she wasn’t worried about the safety of her family members.

  In a nutshell, Sameera described Salem as a cowardly person, extremely frightened of Dawood and whose only desire in life was ‘fame, fame, fame’. Following is the verbatim transcript excerpted from the long interview:

  Sheela: Tell me, is there any person who does not have a heart or a mind?

  Sameera: When someone loves himself, he cannot love anyone else in this world.

  Sheela: You have such guts that you spoke to Dawood one day. You were able to talk to Shakeel?

  Sameera: Because I have nothing to hide.

  Sheela: What is left with you that can be robbed?

  Sameera: Prestige. I still have my honour.

  Sheela: If you talk to someone, how will you lose your honour?

  Sameera: You know, I am still living in a society with my son. If someone points fingers, saying that is her ex-husband, it would matter to me.

  Sheela: So, you feel that this holds some meaning in America?

  Sameera: In your society, where you are living among Indians, it does. They need something to gossip about.

  Sheela: I wanted to ask one thing right from the start, what did Abu Salem want in his life, did you figure out?

  Sameera: Name, name, name, fame, fame, fame.

  Sheela: But this is fame in obverse?

  Sameera: Look, he didn’t understand what famous means and what infamous means.

  Sheela: So, he wished someone would write ‘don’ Abu Salem?

  Sameera: I think so, yes. I just asked him one day, you know, there are so many stage shows and how people come, big, big stars come up and they perform and people are so happy seeing these things, you know when they are entertaining someone and they clap their hands, they want to see them, meet them, love them, hug them, ta
ke pictures of them. [To Salem] Do you think that there is anybody who wants to do this with you?

  Sheela: So, did he like the fact that people were scared of him?

  Sameera: I don’t know, but he didn’t want to hear about it. He told me that ‘people know me and respect me’. I told him that ‘you know they don’t love you or respect you. No one loves you or respects you. They are just scared of you because they love their families or the people in their lives a lot’ . . . If there was an option for me to get out, I would have, long ago. But I could not tell this on his face.

  Sheela: When the blasts happened and there was talk of you being sent away to this place or the other, did you see Abu Salem scared?

  Sameera: He is a very scared person . . . He was in constant touch with me till my son was born. Till then, I was living in that place and he would come every night. I knew that if he did not come one night, he would surely come in the morning and sleep, eat and drink.

  Sheela: Did he bring any star to your house?

  Sameera: One or two had come. He asked me, would you come and I will introduce you to him.

  Sheela: Who **** or **** or ****’? [names deleted]

  Sameera: Please, I didn’t tell you.

  Sheela: But I have heard that he and **** decided to have their son’s name common? [name deleted]

  Sameera: He didn’t even bother to tell this.

  (From the conversation that follows, it seems Salem calls his son ‘Papa’.)

  Sheela: Did he ever hug his son?

  Sameera: He was just two years old when he went away. You know, when he says he could get kids from Monica and he could do this and he could do that . . . He is just a child. He can live his life, let me live.