PICTURE SPEAK

Booked: CBI wants a separate trial for Salem

Judgement in the ’93 Mumbai blast case has been pending for almost 13 years now, primarily because Salem, a key accused amongst others, had been missing. It now needs to be seen if his trial will be separated from the rest of the case, in which a verdict is expected this year. If not detached, justice in the case, which had claimed 257 lives and injured hundreds, will be delayed further. And this is why the cbi
recently requested the tada court to try Salem separately.

An important point of Salem’s confession in the case is that it implicates co-accused filmstar Sanjay Dutt, which is being contested by the actor and his lawyer.

To begin with, the cbi has charged him with transportation of arms from Gujarat to Mumbai for the 1993 blasts. According to the chargesheet, Abu Salem along with others delivered arms and ammunition to Sanjay Dutt at his residence in January 1993. And Salem’s confession too corroborates this fact as he narrated how he had collected and delivered weapons to Dutt. But despite Salem’s confession, the actor’s lawyer Satish Maneshinde says he is not perturbed. “Salem’s confession does not make any difference to Dutt as this has already been brought up by the prosecution earlier. All it can do is delay the verdict if Salem’s trial is not separated,” said Maneshinde. Although the actor had given his confession in 1994, saying the underworld don did offer him weapons, he later retracted from it.

Casefile

DATE of the blast: March 11, 1993 CASUALITY: 257 killed, more than 700 injured MAIN ACCUSED: Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Abu Salem and Dawood’s younger brother Anees COURT HEARING THE CASE: tada Number of people arrested: 205 Suspects chargesheeted: 194 Number of people on bail: 90 Suspects in custody: 36 Number of people absconding: 34 Number of people discharged: 29

According to Chief Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, retractions don’t hold any ground and confessions are admissible in court. “Retraction by Salem or Sanjay Dutt doesn’t affect the case as it is water-tight. Under the provisions of the tada Act, the confession of the accused is required to be produced in front of a chief metropolitan magistrate and the accused is given an opportunity to explain. In this case, the confessions were retracted on an afterthought. This may go on to prove that it is at the behest of someone who is likely to suffer from his confession,” said Nikam.

INTERVIEW | Abu Salem

“I agreed to confess under pressure as I was scared” Abu Salem does not quite agree with the chargesheet that the CBI has filed against him. He says it has manipulated whatever he had confessed. Senior Correspondent Prerana Thakurdesai spoke to the underworld don at the TADA court:   PICTURE SPEAK BLAME GAME: Salem implicates Sanjay Dutt Q. Have you read the chargesheet? A. Yes, I read it and I think it is utter lies. Q. The cbi recorded your confession when you were present. How do you say it is a lie? A. I didn’t know what they were writing. They just told me to give a confession and they wrote whatever they wished to. Q. What did you confess? A. I didn’t say anything to them. They asked me my name, my father’s name and where I grew up. They asked me if I would want to confess and I said I would. However, when it came to writing, they wrote whatever they wanted to. Q. Why did you agree to confess? A. I agreed under pressure. They told me that they would arrest my family members and implicate them in criminal cases. They said this for many days and I finally agreed to confess as I was very scared. Q. Did the cbi ill-treat you? A. They mentally harassed me. They did not beat me, but the mental torture was unbearable and I agreed to give a statement. Q. What do you think of the charges? A. I think this whole game is politically motivated. I am in news everyday. People read about me and politicians are trying to gain political mileage by implicating me in a crime which I am not part of. I know that these charges will be proved false. Q. What part of the confession do you agree with? A. I stand by the first part of the chargesheet in which they asked me if I was aware I was confessing. They asked me if I knew the confession would go against me and I replied in the affirmative. However, in the second part they asked me a few questions to which they wrote whatever they wanted to. It was only later that I came to know what they had written. I don’t agree with the charge of “conspiracy” that has been levied against me. I didn’t know anything about arms and ammunition being transported and that I have already stated before the court.

Nikam alluded to the Mohammed Afroze case in July 2005 when he was convicted for conspiring to commit terrorist acts. “Mohammed Afroze had retracted from his confession, but court convicted him as there was sufficient corroborative evidence that his retraction was an afterthought,” said Nikam. Even in the Best Bakery case, several witnesses turned hostile, and justice was delivered as eight people were convicted. According to advocate Aabad Ponda, “Even if Salem’s trial is not separated from the entire case, there is enough evidence, statements of co-accused and Salem’s own confession to make up a difficult case for Dutt.” From what the entire confession reads like, Salem has portrayed himself as innocent.

According to sources in the cbi, Salem’s only reason to give a confession was to get rid of the “dreaded gangster” tag from his image and show he didn’t know anything about the conspiracy. In all his attempts, he sure has ensured that he doesn’t go down the history lane alone.

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