Jain murder: TADA court frames charges on Abu

Mumbai, Apr 16: A special TADA court today framed charges against underworld don Abu Salem and two others in builder Pradeep Jain's murder case of 1995.

The TADA court Judge P V Bavkar read out and explained the charges to Abu Salem, Mohammed Hussain Sheikh and Virendra Jhab.

However, the trio denied all the charges.

Thereafter, Judge Bavkar framed charges under section 3(2)(II), 3(2), 3(3), 3(5) of TADA act, 120(b), 302, 307 of Indian penal code (IPC) and arms act against them.

Judge Bavkar then adjourned the matter till April 24 with directive to prosecution to file the list of witnesses and documents in the court.

The court explained to the accused persons in Hindi that between November four 1994 and March 1995, they had threatened builders in the city to extort money from them. On March seven, 1995 they had killed Pradeep Jain in his office and also tried to eliminate his younger brother Sunil Jain.

In this case, the Supreme Court has already convicted two of the other accused in the case, Shekhar Namdeo Kadam and Subhash Bhind.

It may be recalled that two unidentified gunmen had shot builder Pradeep Jain on March seven, 1995, outside his house 'Brij Kamal' in Juhu, a western suburb of Mumbai. Salem has been charged with conspiracy under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (prevention) Act in the case.

UNI