It’s a fight between the anti-terrorism investigators and the journalists who write for the gossip pages as to who will be the first to shed light on the links between some stars of Indian cinema, also referred to as Bollywood, and the former crime boss Abu Salem, as he confesses to his role in the attacks in 1993 in Mumbai which also hit the Mumbai stock exchange and killed 250 people and injured 1400.


Police sources in Mumbai say that the names of celebrities have been brought up and some Bollywood stars will have to supply explanations to the judges, even if they have on more than one occasion been the victims of extortion and blackmail by Salem who long operated in Bollywood circles - not only for criminal gangs run by the crime lord Dawood Ibrahim, but also as a cinema producer.

Salem was extradited last Friday from Portugal together with his partner, former actress, Monica Bedi, with whom he had been arrested by the police in Lisbon in 2002 for possession of false documents.

At the top of the list of well-known names provided by Salem is Sanjay Dutt, a leading actor in dozens of Bollywood films and a veteran of many romantic leading man roles. Dutt was brought to trial but has managed to avoid appearing before the judges and prosecutors by presenting a certificate that stated that he was medically unfit.

According to local media reports, Salem confessed to having delivered a bag filled with arms and explosives to Sanjay’s home which were eventually used in the terrorist attack which occured on 12 March 1993.

Dutt is the son of a the late Sunil Dutt, a well-known politician, and brother to Priya Dutt, a candidate in the supplementary elections scheduled for Saturday, 19 November for the constituency of Mumbia North-West under the Congress party. He was also close friends with Salem since he was, on behalf of Dawood Ibrahim, often in Bollywood circles together with Bedi, through which he could keep a close watch on events and also indicate the stock exchange which was to be the target of the 1993 attacks.

According to the police, organised criminal gangs have a strong control over Bollywood productions as well as producers and actors who have expensive contracts and have to pay protection money if they want to eventually see their film being screened in the cinemas. Crime bosses are paid-off at every point of a film, from its production, distribution, the reproduction on cassette or DVD to its promotional publicity.

Hounded by reporters, Sanjay Dutt, for his part, has admitted to having authorised the delivery of the bag to his home a few days before the attack but he clarified that he did not know what it’s contents would be used for, and that he was on holiday in Mauritius at the time that this occured. The actor has also admitted however that he knew what what was in the bag, so much so that he decided to keep for himself an AK47 assault rifle, which he later had melted down once his name was mentioned in the investigations into the attacks in Mumbai.

The attacks were organised and bear the signs of Dawood’s gang which also includes a group of Kashmiri separatists who since the early 90s have been fighting the security forces in Indian Kashmir in a civil conflict. Dawood is reported to have given his personal guarantee to the success of the operation to avenge the Muslims who were killed a year before in Mumbai in a clash with Hindu militants.

According to sources within the Criminal Bureau of Investigation quoted in the newspaper Mumbai Mirror, the evidence against Dutt until now, has been based on the testimony of the person who delivered the bag. Salem’s confession closed the circle and “his admission will make it easier for us to secure Dutt’s conviction”.

To reconstruct the link between Salem and Bollywood, the investigators will have to dig through a mountain of names, especially to understand how the man who was India’s most wanted criminal could continue to exercise his influence on the cinema industry even from afar. Although he became a fugitive soon after the attacks and was eventually caught and put in jail, Salem, with the backing of some others, was able to carry on with his extortion and blackmail activities, without the support from Dawood Ibrahim who in the mean time relocated to Karachi, Pakistan. While on the run Salem has managed to produce several films, three of which still have to be released.

According to the police, Salem’s interets in Bollywood, was nurtured by Mukesh Duggal, who was killed in 1997 and later by Bobby Anand, who has so far denied all the charges. The evidence that has been gathered by the investigators however that concerning his men, Salem produced in total 15 films, with all the big named stars in Bollywood, while he also profitted from dozens of other productions, earning him a total of hundreds of thousands of euros every year.

It now remains to be seen what other names are revealed by the former crime boss. Ashok Sarogi, Salem’s lawyer, said that Salem said “that he knew certain Bollywood personalities who came to meet him”. R. R. Patil, the number-two in the government of Maharashtra in which Bombay is the capital, said that whoever is responsible will eventually be taken to task because “no one is above the law. Even if they have money or influence”.

Source: adnki.com