By IANS,
Hyderabad : Underworld don and 1993 Mumbai serial blasts accused Abu Salem Thursday appeared before a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court here in connection with the fake passport case.
He was brought from Mumbai amid tight security and presented before the CBI court in Nampally criminal court complex. The court examined two witnesses in the case and adjourned the hearing to May 14. Summons were issued to three witnesses to appear before the court in the next hearing.
The gangster was later taken back to Mumbai by train.
The CBI filed a case against Salem, former actress and his girl friend Monica Bedi, his first wife Sabeen Azmi and others for procuring passports using fake names and addresses in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool district August 2001.
The fraud was detected in February 2002 when the Intelligence Bureau got a tip-off that Salem and Bedi had used fake passports during a trip to Dubai.
The special court had framed the charges including criminal conspiracy, forgery, impersonation and cheating under of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Passport Act against Salem in January last year.
Abu Salem’s counsel Pradeep Kumar said of 54 witnesses in the case, the court has examined 30 and the remaining will be examined in the next two months. Some of the witnesses in the case have died in the last few years, he added.
Salem, who is also an accused in the 1993 serial Mumbai bomb blasts, has already pleaded that he was implicated in a false case and claimed that he had left India in 1993.
After prolonged extradition proceedings, Salem and Bedi were brought to India from Portugal Nov 11, 2005, and cases against them separated for speedy trial.
Bedi was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in the same case by the CBI court in 2007 but later released on bail by the supreme court. She was acquitted by a Bhopal court in a similar case in 2007.