Inquiry on Salem's 'marriage': Mumbai Police visits Delhi

New Delhi: A Mumbai Police team today visited the Patiala House courts here in connection with its probe into gangster Abu Salem's reported marriage on a train while being escorted by police to Lucknow for a court hearing.

The team questioned the policemen deployed at the lock up inside the courts premises where Salem is kept on the day when he appears during hearing on cases lodged against him here. Besides questioning the lock up officials inside the court premises, the Mumbai Police team also examined advocate M S Khan, who is representing Salem in courts here, and asked him about the marriage. Khan told the police that he does not have any information about the alleged marriage as Salem had not told him anything about it.

According to sources, the police team would visit Lucknow tomorrow to inquire into the matter. They also said that the investigators have not found anything till date which corroborates the media report about Salem's marriage. The team was constituted after a designated TADA court in Mumbai had recently directed the Thane Police Commissioner to conduct an inquiry into the matter. The TADA court had asked the Commissioner to conduct an inquiry as to how an accused, who is in judicial custody, can marry on a train without its permission.

Special Judge G A Sanap's directive had came after he had taken suo motu cognisance of the media report that appeared in a tabloid in Mumbai. According to the report, Salem had married a resident of Mumbra in adjoining Thane district last month on a train and that the nikah was performed by a Qazi in Mumbai over phone. Salem's nephew, advocate Rashid Ansari, and some policemen were witness to the marriage, the report had claimed.

However, Salem, while speaking to reporters outside the courtroom in Mumbai, had dubbed the report as "baseless" and a "rumour". Salem, an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, was extradited from Portugal in November 2005 after a prolonged legal battle and he is also accused in various cases lodged in India.