Shielded by a deal, it’s a jolly good life for Abu Salem

Hiding behind the executive-diplomatic arrangement securing his extradition to India, gangster Abu Salem is living a rather charmed life.

For someone being tried in more than eight criminal cases, including the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts and the killing of music baron Gulshan Kumar, Salem looks unperturbed. He dresses immaculately, puffs away his favourite brand of cigarettes and gets all the luxuries he needs in jail.

Last year, during a surprise visit to the Arthur Road Jail, Maharashtra’s Minister of State for Home, Ramesh Bagwe, was shocked at the lifestyle of the don. He had a cell phone, had marble flooring in the cell and excellent bathroom facilities. The cell had a bed and utensils. There was a stock of fruits to last an inmate 10-12 days. He gets into occasional fights with other gangster inmates too — after one of those he was shifted to the Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai.

And yes, he can threaten the authorities with legal questions too. Not quite the life of an inmate outsiders imagine.

Blame it on the niceties of the executive agreement between Portugal and India which facilitated the transfer of the underworld figure from a Portugese jail to the country in 2005. The agreement specified that Salem would not be given death penalty or charged under any section of the law that attracts more than 25 years of imprisonment.

India had to provide that ’executive assurance’ since Portugal maintained that under European law no persons can be extradited to a country where death sentence is a mode of punishment. The government then had also agreed that Salem would be tried only under specific sections, which did not include the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

Salem has been taking advantage of it, threatening to move the Portugese court every now and then at every sign of discomfiture. Hands tied, Indian authorities could do little. Last year, Salem’s counsel had approached the Portuguese High Court after the Supreme Court of India dismissed his plea and upheld the designated TADA court’s decision to frame additional charges against him for the 1993 Mumbai blasts, in addition to the other grave charges for which he was extradited to face trial in India.

Now, a Lisbon High Court has ordered termination of extradition of Salem for breach of agreement by India. It maintains that he had been slapped charges which attract the death penalty. The court has said that the don be sent back to Portugal.

The Indian government could move the Portugese Supreme Court against the high court’s order as an option. The CBI could also consider dropping some charges it had invoked against the extradition order – he was charged under the stringent MCOCA in 2005 in an extortion case. It could be settled with some diplomatic intervention too.

But the irony of all this is overwhelming. Salem – one-time Dawood Ibrahim associate, a terror in the film world for his extortion calls and suspected killings, an accused in 1993 bomb blasts and much more – is still comfortably placed despite his criminal track record. He is in a position to dictate terms to the authorities of India. He won’t get the death sentence and he won’t be sentenced to more than 25 years in a single case.

One cannot blame the Portugese government. They have been gracious enough and they have rules to follow. India cannot arm-twist an independent country either. Probably there’s a need to bring in more urgency at the diplomatic level in the cases of criminals and fugitives from the law.