In a Bollywood thriller, the ending no doubt would have been different and the Mumbai Police would have come out with flying colours. In reality, things are a bit different as the force found out for the second time in less than a month. In March, a Mumbai court ordered the release of the police's prize catch, the alleged Al Qaida activist Mohammed Afroz. Last week, the Mumbai policemen found egg all over their face when a sessions court in the city acquitted 17 of the accused in the murder of T-Series owner Gulshan Kumar.

SCOT FREE: Taurani (centre) stands acquitted in the murder of a rival (top left)

The music mogul was shot dead on August 12, 1997, as he came out after prayers from a temple in the Four Bungalows area of the city. On April 23 the court convicted Abdul Rauf Daud Merchant for shooting Kumar dead but said the prosecution had failed to prove the conspiracy charges against the other accused. Among the 17 acquitted for lack of evidence is Ramesh Taurani, director of Tips Cassettes. The police had charged Taurani of paying the contract money of Rs 25 lakh to Dubai-based gangster Abu Salem to kill Kumar, his business rival. Says Taurani: "The judgement will help me regain my lost credibility."

CRIME

LOOPHOLES IN THE PROSECUTION   » No concrete or circumstantial evidence to corroborate charges » The case hinged on confessional accounts of witnesses » Approver Mohammed Ali Shaikh turned hostile » Key witness Chunky Pandey turned hostile » Prime witness Keki Balsara died in Crime Branch premises

Over in London, Nadeem Saifee finds himself lucky for the second time in six months. In November last year, the Bollywood music director who is the prime accused in the murder case, had fought and won in the London High Court an extradition case filed against him by the Indian Government. The Mumbai sessions court verdict has left him ecstatic. "The Mumbai Police are the culprits in this case and they should admit their mistake," Saifee told India Today from London.

Having fled to England shortly after Kumar's murder, Saifee is listed along with Salem as an "absconding accused". He will face trial if and when he arrives in India. But his advocate Majid Memon argues that Saifee is not in hiding and that he could be reached. Says Memon: "The sessions court verdict has now raised hopes for Saifee's return to India provided the Indian Government assures him a fair trial-if any-without subjecting him to any arrest and custody." Memon is now planning to ask the Government to recall the non-bailable red corner notice to facilitate Saifee's arrival.

"The Mumbai Police are the culprits in this case and they should admit their mistake." Nadeem Saifee, Prime accused

Delhi's assurance on Saifee's safety is necessary for his return as the London High Court had last December expressed doubts about the music director's security in India. The House of Lords had upheld the high court judgement, noting that "the misbehaviour by (Mumbai) police pursuing their inquiries has so tainted the evidence as to render a fair trial (in India) impossible". Incidentally, last week's verdict to some extent corroborates the judgement of Lord Justice Rose of the London High Court. The London court had remarked that the Mumbai Police could not collect concrete evidence to support their allegations against Saifee and had ordered a reimbursement of legal cost of £920,080 (Rs 6 crore) to Saifee. The failure to have Saifee extradited, it would seem, was just the trailer of the bigger fiasco that has now unfolded.

Kumar was a small-time fruitseller in Delhi's crowded Daryaganj who went on to create a Rs 350-crore empire with varied businesses: music, movies, agarbattis, bottled water, detergents, consumer electronics and real estate. But it was his involvement with the film industry-specially the music sector-that brought him fame, wealth and, ultimately, death. Among the accused, Taurani was another music mogul with the same buccaneering spirit and therefore a rival. Saifee along with Shravan Rathod formed the Nadeem-Shravan music duo. The team struggled until Kumar took them under his wings and his T-Series brand. Since then there was no looking back. A string of musical hits followed but relations soured when the duo, who until then had been exclusively producing music for Kumar's company, signed up with rival recording company Tips. Though a patch-up followed soon afterwards, relations were never the same.

The Mumbai Police also believed Saifee was a pivot in a much bigger plot. In the initial stages of the investigations it had interrogated film stars like Shah Rukh Khan and Chunkey Pandey who had done musical shows with the Nadeem-Shravan team in Dubai a few weeks before Kumar was shot dead.

What finally turned the case in favour of the accused was approver Mohammed Ali Shaikh's deposition, a document that the Mumbai Police claim was written by Shaikh himself. Experts testified it was written in a fluent hand by an educated person, while Shaikh is virtually an illiterate who can merely sign his name in Urdu and English. Unfortunately for the prosecutors, Shaikh turned hostile and retracted his confession.

The same story was replayed in the sessions court where witnesses like Shaikh and Pandey-whose earlier statements to the police said that a conspiracy was hatched by Saifee and Salem with the help of Taurani-turned hostile during trial. The credibility of the police investigations was further dented when Shaikh claimed he was tortured by the police and his statement was made under duress.

Worse was in store for the prosecution. A key prosecution witness Keki Balsara, who was expected to give vital evidence in the case, died in the Crime Branch premises last year. The prosecution was banking on his version to prove that Taurani had paid Salem through Saifee to bump off Kumar. In earlier depositions, Balsara is on record that he was asked by Salem to take the money from Saifee and hand it over to the contract killers.

Says Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam: "The setback happened only because the approver turned hostile but the battle is not fully lost as yet." The police now plan to appeal in the Bombay High Court, a step which many believe is aimed not just at pinning down the culprits in the Gulshan Kumar murder but also to salvage their image that has truly taken a beating in recent times.