Court to hear charges against Salem on Aug 17

Mumbai, Aug 13: A special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) court will hear on August 17 the criminal conspiracy charges in the draft charges against extradited gangster Abu Salem in the 1995 murder case of builder Pradeep Jain.

Pradeep Jain, a builder, was gunned down on March 7, 1995, and his brother Sunil Jain survived in the attack, which occurred on his office situated at Juhu in North West Mumbai, as he had failed to pay the extortion amount.

This is one of the three cases here on the basis of which Salem was extradited from Portugal.

Special Public Prosecutor Ujwal Nikam on August 9 opened the draft charges against Salem and four others before the special TADA court Judge P V Bavkar and submitted that the accused persons had stricken terror in the builder community and a conspiracy in this regard was hatched at Dubai and Mumbai, thus the accused in the case have committed an offence punishable under section 120 (B) and other sections under Indian Penal Code (IPC) and TADA.

The five accused are Abu Salem, Mohd Hasan Mehendi Hasan, Virendra Kumar Bidarilal Jhamd (a builder), Riyaz Ahmed Siddique and Mohd Naeem Khan.

Of them, Siddique and Khan have filed an application seeking pardon and turned approvers in this case, while Jhamd has challenged the charge of TADA court in this case, which will also come up for hearing on the same day (Aug 17).

On July 28, the Crime Branch had filed a chargesheet against Salem and others under various sections including IPC 384 for extortion, 302 for murder, 307 for attempt to murder, 452 for house trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint, 506 (ii) criminal intimidation, 120 (B) criminal conspiracy of the IPC, section 5 and 27 of the Arms Act and sections 3 (2),(3),(5) and 5 of TADA act for possessing and transporting weapons.

UNI

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