Court issues fresh production warrant against Salem

NEW DELHI: A court here on Wednesday issued a fresh production warrant against underworld don Abu Salem after Mumbai police once again failed to produce him in a five-year-old extortion case.
    
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Sanjeev Jain directed the Arthur Road jail authorities in Mumbai to produce the extradited gangster before him on January 16.
    
The Special Cell of Delhi Police had registered a case of extortion and criminal intimidation against Salem and his alleged associates Ishtiyaq Ahmed and Chander Prakash in 2002.
    
The accused allegedly made extortion calls to a South Delhi-based businessman, Rajat Nagrath, demanding a ransom of Rs one crore.
    
The CMM court had on November 21 issued a production warrant against Salem for today. The FIR in the case was registered in Lodhi Colony police station in South Delhi on Nagrath's complaint.
    
The other two accused, Ahmed and Prakash are lodged in Bhopal jail while Salem is in the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai.
    
Salem, who was extradited from Portugal on November five, 2005, is also one of the accused in a MCOCA case registered in 2002 for allegedly attempting to extort Rs five crore from a contractor Ashok Gupta.
    
A separate court, trying the MCOCA case here, had also issued a production warrant against him for December 15.
    
Salem had on October 12 attended the funeral of his mother Jannatunisha, who died in Azamgarh district in Uttar Pradesh, after being granted permission by a court in Mumbai.