Abu Salem was aiming to take a bullet train to Lisbon

An underworld sharpshooter fires two shots at extradited gangster Abu Salem inside Navi Mumbai’s Taloja jail. The weapon: a country-made pistol.

While one misses Salem, the other hits him in the web between the index finger and thumb.

Do you find it difficult to digest? Well, even the underworld and some police officers feel the entire episode of Devendra Jagtap alias JD shooting at Salem is an eyewash. Some say it was a strategic move planned to make Salem’s extradition plea stronger.

The planning began in October last year when Salem managed to get his extradition plea admitted in Portugal’s Supreme Court. His contention: the CBI had violated most of the conditions set by the Portugal court while releasing him to India in 2005.

“In October 2012, it was clear that Salem would be sent back to Portugal and he would be a free man,” a source in the underworld said.

Around this time, fugitive gangster Chhota Rajan put out feelers to Salem asking him to join his gang. “Rajan is an aged man now. And he doesn’t have a second-in-command,” a crime branch officer said. “Rajan felt Salem would be the ideal candidate. He is in his 40s, he has made a name for himself, and he is fit. Also, he has the ability to form a team of youngsters at short notice. And he still has considerable hold on UP’s Azamgarh.”

If Salem is sent back to Portugal, he would be a free man because he has already served a prison sentence there, the officer added. Salem apparently has a well established business there.

Also, Rajan found that Salem, like him, disliked Dawood Ibrahim. He would not join the D-Company come what may. The reason: Dawood’s younger brother Anis Ibrahim had made derogatory remarks about Salem’s former girlfriend Monica Bedi, the officer said. 

Rajan kept requesting Salem through his henchmen but Salem kept refusing. At one point, he kept to himself and stopped talking to others in Taloja jail. “He only spoke to his two aides who were lodged in the same jail,” an official from the Taloja jail said.

But some months back, Salem accepted Rajan’s proposal. And immediately a plan was set in motion. “It was decided that there would be an attack on Salem, which would make his extradition case stronger. He would then say his life is under threat in India and he should be sent back to Portugal,” the underworld source said. 

Accordingly, Devendra Jagtap alias JD, who is serving time in Taloja in connection with the 2010 murder of criminal lawyer Shahid Azmi in Kurla, was roped in. “JD was offered Rs2 lakh for the job,” the source said. JD’s two associates slipped in the pistol in a tiffin carrier when they met him in court on Thursday.

“We are investigating this angle,” an investigating officer from Navi Mumbai said.

He, however, said he would not confirm or deny that such a deal might have been brokered between Salem and Rajan.

But many senior officers and experts agree that the incident has made Salem’s extradition plea stronger.