My Name is Abu Salem

  Within weeks, Salem had made up his mind.

  ‘Start packing.’

  The moment those words left Salem’s mouth, Monica knew exactly why he was saying what he was saying. Despite feeling very comfortable in the United States with access to a life of luxury, she knew that they simply couldn’t risk hanging around those parts any longer. Within weeks of 9/11, Salem and his lady love hopped on to the first flight out of O’Hare International Airport in Chicago and headed east.

  Salem had always been highly adaptable. He had survived by being a product of change. Azamgarh to Mumbai to Dubai to the USA. So, this latest change wasn’t really unsettling for him. It was Monica he was concerned about and of course, the threat from his ex-colleagues, friends and employers. But there was no time to mull over all that, he reckoned, as he began to take another look at a map of the world.

  In the wake of the September 11 attacks, it wasn’t just the United States, but Europe too that was on high alert. Also, anticipating that the CBI would have spread its men across the continent to take him out, Salem first landed in Oslo and spent six weeks with his parents-in-law. He then began chalking out his plan to look for another base.

  Twenty-One

  Salem Under Surveillance

  IN ALL HIS FLIGHTS OF FANCY, Salem had never imagined that a day would come when he would rule as Bollywood’s undisputed shah. The pervasiveness of his reign of terror was such that there was not a single industry professional who had not been threatened and intimidated by him or forced to part with money or business equity.

  The gangster had threatened and extorted from virtually everyone—top film directors, producers, actors, distributors. In fact, even a lowly cameraman on a meagre salary or a director of photography would not be spared and would have to shell out Rs 5 lakh or so to buy peace.

  When the Delhi Police put several phones under electronic surveillance, some sensational disclosures came about. It was in November 1998 after listening in to the telephone calls of alleged Dawood frontman Romesh Sharma, the Delhi Police discovered his connections with Abu Salem.

  The police had begun recording Sharma’s phone calls from August 1998 and initially found him chatting with his girlfriend and people he boasted to about his political contacts.

  The most vital breakthrough for the police came when they began tapping one particular phone that was used secretively and the number apparently known to only a very few people. Sharma used this number to call his friends in the underworld in Dubai. The police managed to record over fifty conversations between Sharma and Anis Ibrahim or Salem.

  Over three months of tapping, the police heard Sharma and Salem discussing collection of cash for the imminent elections, plans to kill gangster Babloo Srivastava in jail, and Salem’s attempts to extort money from actress Manisha Koirala.

  The tapping continued until the police gathered enough evidence against Sharma, and finally arrested him on 20 October 1998. The transcripts of the conversations between Salem and Sharma indicated that the latter’s fledgling party, the All India Bharatiya Congress Party, was poised to take off during the Assembly polls. However, Sharma was facing an acute cash crunch and needed Salem to fund his campaign.

  The following conversation took place on 18 October, barely two days before Sharma’s arrest:

  Sharma: ‘Tangi hai. Maine seventy candidate laganein hain. Sixty crore chahiyein.’ (There is a paucity of funds. I have to field seventy candidates in the elections and I need Rs 60 crore).

  Salem: ‘Nahin, nahin, par tum baat kar lena.’ (No, no, but you talk about this [to the boss].)

  Perhaps, Salem wanted Sharma to discuss the issue with Anis. For the Delhi Police, the most solid piece of intelligence that could potentially nail Sharma’s links with the Salem gang was revealed in conversations on 1 October. Salem was calling Sharma to tell him about his attempt to extort money from Manisha Koirala. Incidentally, the Mumbai Police had already received complaints from her about the threatening calls she had received, and they were investigating. But they got their first clue from their counterparts in Delhi.

  Salem: ‘Maine phone kiya tha Manisha Koirala ko. Woh milee nahin. Maine kal chaar–paanch ladke bheje. Uske driver aur chowkidar ko peet diya.’ (I phoned Manisha Koirala, but she was not there. I sent four–five boys to her house. They beat up her driver and guard.)

  Salem used to also share with Sharma details of major killings he was planning to carry out in and around Delhi. For instance, Salem revealed to Sharma that they were planning to kill Srivastava in Naini Jail, Allahabad. Salem told Sharma that it was a reprisal killing, revenge for the murder of Mirza Dilshad Beg in Nepal. Mirza was killed by Chhota Rajan and Srivastava in Kathmandu on 29 June 1998. However, Sharma assured Salem that he needn’t worry nor send his men to kill Srivastava. His death would be orchestrated as part of a fake encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Police.

  Salem said: ‘Ek doosra kaam hone wala hai. Uska naam bataoonga.’ (Another job is going to be done. I will tell you the name.)’

  Sharma: ‘Kiska?’ (Whose?)

  Salem: ‘Mirza ka Babloo se milke kaam karaya tha. Uska badla lena hai.’ (Mirza was killed with the help of Babloo. We have to take revenge.)

  Sharma: ‘Uska kaam main karaa doonga UP Police se. (I will get him killed by the UP Police.)

  At least half a dozen tapes of such conversations were sealed and presented in court as part of evidence. There are also several tapes with recordings of harmless and innocuous conversations as well as a sheaf of handwritten transcripts, prepared either when the Crime Branch sleuths failed to switch on the recorder or when they ran out of tape.

  Salem, who extorted money from the film fraternity, would also take his cue from the movies. The Mumbai Crime Branch recorded a conversation in which Salem was directing five of his men and issuing instructions on how to attack Manmohan Shetty, the owner of the Adlabs chain of multiplexes.

  Shetty was being threatened by Salem to hand over a large sum of money. Shetty had refused to buckle under the pressure, infuriating Salem who decided that the Adlabs man’s intransigence would have to be punished. While talking to his men, he instructed them to watch the Sanjay Dutt starrer Vaastav and follow the modus operandi of a murder in the film.

  Since these Azamgarh boys had no experience of killing anyone before, Salem had to describe each and every aspect of the hit job. As he discovered, the boys had not even done basic research on the target, and Salem began by describing Shetty’s appearance to them, followed by the plan on how the killing was to be executed.

  Salem: ‘Imtiyaz, tum logon ne picture nahin dekhi kya, Vaastav? Vaastav nahin dekha kya Sanjay Dutt ki?’ (Imtiyaz, have you not seen the movie Vaastav? The Sanjay Dutt starrer Vaastav?)

  Imtiyaz: ‘Haan, bhai, dekhi hai.’ (Yes, bhai, we have seen it.)

  Salem: ‘Haan, toh vaisa hi karne ka hai, jaise picture mein kiya.’ (Yes, then do it the way it was done in the movie.)

  Imtiyaz: ‘Haan, aap befikar rahein, aap ko ek bhi shikayat ka mauka nahin milega. Hum log ko kuch bhi ho jaye, magar aap ko shikayat ka mauka nahin denge.’ (You don’t worry, you will not have any complaints. Whatever may happen to us, we will not disappoint you.)

  In the style of a particularly aggressive sports coach, Salem also used expletive-laden tirades to motivate his men the night before the planned attack on Manmohan Shetty. Salem exhorted his men not to leave the scene of the attack until they had completely exhausted their ammunition. The recorded conversation of this pep talk gave the Mumbai Police an insight into Salem’s motivational speeches.

  Salem: ‘Aisa nahin ki ek–do firing kiya aur bhaag gaye. Maar dene ka. Poora khali karne ka. Phir nikalne ka. Choron ki tarah aisa kaam nahin karne ka ki do goli fire kiya aur bhaag gaye. Baat saaf hai, iske baad tum hero banoge.’ (Don’t do a half-hearted job and fire a couple of rounds and escape. Shoot to kill. Finish all your bullets. Don’t behave like cowards who fire two bullets and run away. It is clear you will become heroes after this.)

/>   The conversation also revealed Salem’s lack of ethics and his violation of the mafia code of never targeting a cop. Usually, no gunman was instructed to shoot a policeman howsoever extreme the circumstances. But Salem breached that basic code too.

  Salem: ‘Koi bhi police aa gaya, koi bhi saamne aa gaya, koi poochha ki kai ke liye khada hai, kyon khada hai, policewalla, to nikalo saaman aur dhan dhan usko maro . . . Poochha toh maar do usko. Yeh nahin ki aise hi khade hain. Agar poochha ki kaahe ke liye ghoom raha hai, kya kar raha hai, toh nikalne ka peechhe se. Aur khopdi mein san se dene ka.’ (If any cop comes or anyone asks you what you are doing there, take your gun and shoot him . . . Shoot anyone who questions your presence. Don’t keep standing like a fool. The moment anyone questions you, get your gun and blast his head off.)

  These conversations were recorded on 1 May 2001. Shetty was attacked the next day, 2 May. However, despite all these instructions and the motivational speeches, Salem’s men botched up the assignment and Shetty was lucky to escape with injuries while the gunmen were arrested by the police.

  Twenty-Two

  Caught Out in Lisbon

  SHAHZAD HAIDER, A SMALL-TIME ENTREPRENEUR, HAD made a new friend in Lisbon: Arsalan, a fellow Pakistani, distributed and exported Omax watches and he was very rich. The two got along like a house on fire and Shahzad considered Arsalan’s beautiful Indian wife Sana as his sister. Shahzad had spent all his life in Geneva, Switzerland, but after marrying a Portuguese girl, he had settled down in Lisbon. The marriage gave him Portuguese citizenship and a passport. It was Shahzad, seeing Arsalan making trips throughout Europe looking for a place to settle down, who finally suggested that he make Lisbon his home. Shahzad also helped him through the process of acquiring Portuguese citizenship.

  The two would usually meet at Arsalan’s plush apartment at Avenida Paulo VI in Zona L of the Chelas area in the wealthy suburbs of Lisbon. Shahzad was in awe of his new friend’s lifestyle: his plush house, the expensive Jeep Mercedes WI which he knew would easily cost about 2 crore rupees in Pakistan, Arsalan’s two diamond-studded rings which probably cost a few thousand dollars each . . .

  But there was something about Arsalan’s wealth that rubbed the Pakistani the wrong way. For instance, Shahzad would try to take Arsalan to small roadside delis for meals, but Arsalan always insisted on going to fancy restaurants. Shahzad disapproved of this, often punching Arsalan affectionately for squandering so much money. But Arsalan was determined to look and behave wealthy. No matter how much he tried to persuade his rich friend, Shahzad knew that Arsalan would never change—flaunting wealth would always be part and parcel of his friend’s personality.

  A massive shock lay in store for him. One day, Arsalan, with Shahzad next to him in the passenger seat, had just left Chelas and was driving on the roundabout at Rotunda de Cabo Ruivo. Suddenly, he hit the brakes so hard that a series of cars came to a screeching halt behind them. Before Shahzad could process what had happened, he saw armed police personnel and commandos surround them; a police jeep had also blocked them off from behind.

  Shahzad didn’t think they were the Policia de Seguranca Publica—the civilian police that worked in urban areas; their uniform was a light blue shirt, dark blue tie and trousers and a blue cap. Arsalan’s car, on the other hand, was surrounded by men in black commando uniforms and balaclavas that left only their eyes visible. They were from the Policia Judiciara, which only dealt with major criminal cases. Why were they after Arsalan?

  Inspector Pereira Cristovao flashed his badge and ID, and loudly repeated, ‘Police, Police, Police.’ Arsalan and Shahzad were instructed to step out of the car slowly with their hands in the air. Once they were out, the commandos forced them to bend face down on the bonnet of their car and they were then handcuffed behind their backs. Shahzad tried to engage their chief in conversation and convince him that there was some mix-up. The chief warmed up to Shahzad when he heard him speak in Portuguese. But he told Shahzad that his friend was actually a man who had a red-corner alert notice from Interpol. This man was no Pakistani called Arsalan. He was Abu Salem and he was a terrorist wanted by the Indian police for his involvement in the Mumbai blasts.

  Salem used the unwitting distraction created by Shahzad’s conversation with the chief to move closer to the roundabout and surreptitiously remove both his diamond rings and drop them in the shrubbery. He knew those rings were valued at over $25,000, worth lakhs in Indian currency, and did not want the police to seize them. Salem later told Monica’s brother Bobby to retrieve the rings.

  The two men were taken to the police headquarters, known as the Policia Judiciara National, which works under the aegis of the Ministry of Justice. Salem was also charged for crashing his vehicle into a police van despite repeated warnings and for resisting arrest. Both these charges were highly unlikely ones—Salem had always behaved discreetly outside India and he wouldn’t have dreamed of defying a cop or even banging against his vehicle.

  Subsequently, a group of officers left for Salem’s residence in Avenida Paulo VI at Chelas and arrested Monica Bedi, living under the identity of Sana Kamil Malik. They searched the house in Monica’s presence and found a driver by the name of Shaikh Afzal sleeping in one of the rooms. They also seized several Indian passports and various visas—Swiss, American, Canadian, British, Schengen and Portuguese—as well as several Lufthansa tickets which indicated trips between Oslo and Lisbon, and Oslo and Frankfurt, train tickets between Stuttgart and Frankfurt, handwritten details of cash transactions, and bank statements. The team, led by Inspector Pereira Cristovao and agents Rui Mendao, Nuno Santos and Nuno Henriques, also found cash which included forty-nine bills of $100 denomination, and 2035 Indian rupees. They also found marriage documents of Arsalan Mohsin Ali with Deolinda Maria, and of Shahzad Haider with Sana Kamil Malik.

  Since his departure from Chicago in October the previous year, Salem had been scouring Europe for a place to call home, even as he switched identities while in each country. The past year may have been unstable, but it was also a very happy and romantic time in his relationship with Monica. They were far from the law enforcement agencies, his rivals and enemies. And best of all, they were a whole ocean away from Sameera and her judgemental glare. The couple got married on 20 November 2001. They spent six weeks with Monica’s family in Norway and then left on a longish honeymoon. For Salem, this was his third marriage, although he claims that Monica was his second wife.

  The couple settled initially in Norway. Monica’s familiarity with the place obviously helped, as did the fact that they were completely unknown to the locals. That was the first time that Salem realized that Monica was taking his money without permission. This led to fights between them—with Salem revealing his true colours and becoming violent with Monica as he had been with Sameera. But he always took the initiative of making up with his beautiful new wife, whereas he would ignore Sameera for days. Salem would also lavish expensive gifts on her and take her to new places, two things that women generally like. The constant travelling also helped them stay below the radar. Monica and Salem would drive up and down the continent, looking for a place to call home, because Norway was always only a makeshift residence. They drove to Switzerland, Spain and Germany, but nothing seemed right.

  Salem kept up his Bollywood connections in the meantime, meeting all the stars who would come to shoot in Switzerland. As usual, he took the identity of Arsalan while socializing with the film world. It was in this context that he met Shahzad who still had a base and substantial contacts in Geneva. Shahzad persuaded him to settle down in Lisbon and they moved to the Portuguese capital, renting a massive apartment stocked with a 24/7 team of servants, drivers, butlers, etc. And after all these years, Salem finally had a garage packed with amazing cars. This was to be a short-lived phase of peace and comfort. For Salem, happiness was always a temporary state.

  In the meantime, Shahzad was helping them with the paperwork. He told Salem that he and Monica would have to briefly marry citizens of Portug
al which would earn them that much-desired residence card. After that, they could even apply for citizenship. And so, Shahzad had a civil marriage with Monica, while Salem married Deolinda Maria. Deolinda was paid 3000 euros, while Shahzad was paid 4500 euros for their services.

  Shahzad was horrified when he discovered that the man who had been his bosom pal for the last ten months and who had behaved so warmly, taking his ribbing and his punches sportingly, was actually a dreaded don from India. The man could put a chameleon to shame. Salem had perfected the art of being the globetrotting bluffmaster who could switch identities at the drop of a hat. For instance, to complete the cover of being Danish Beg, Salem also got a marksheet from Mumbai University which showed that he was a commerce graduate and had passed with flying colours. His master creation was Arsalan Ali and he had put in a lot of detail to this identity. Arsalan had both an address and parentage—he was apparently born to Mohsin Ali and Sultana Ali, both from Tariq Road, Karachi. Arsalan had also previously married Yasmeen on 30 August 1996. But then, due to their relationship breaking down, he had to divorce her on 15 February 2000. Arsalan had apparently given talaq-baen (a sort of irrevocable divorce which is normally issued in multiple sittings) to Yasmeen so that she could not claim any part of his inheritance.

  He had then married Sana Malik (alias Monica) for a mehr (alimony) of Rs 50,000 in Karachi. The nikah was recited by Mohammad Jameel Hafiz Ghulami. The qazi who represented Sana Malik was Mohammad Azam Ata Mohammad. The nikah was solemnized on 20 August 2001. The papers for the ceremony were notarized by advocate Ashraf Ali of City Court, Pakistan, and was ratified by Zahid Masud, the section officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Camp Office, Karachi. In the papers, Sana Malik was a resident of Commercial Area, Karachi. And since it is mandatory to mention on the nikahnama whether the bride was previously married or unmarried, the column mentions that she was a virgin. It was signed by her.