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A special court here yesterday sentenced gangster Abu Salem to seven years in jail in the 2001 fake passport case. |
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court, which on November 18 convicted the gangster, extradited from Portugal, held him guilty of criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery.
Abu Salem had obtained a passport under a fictitious name and address from Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh in 2001. The 3rd Special CBI Court judge M V Ramana Naidu yesterday pronounced the order.
Abu Salem, who was brought by the police from Mumbai, was present in the court hall. He was later taken back to Mumbai, where he is lodged in a jail in other criminal cases.
CBI’s senior public prosecutor T V Ramana said that Salem was found guilty under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). These include Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 419 (cheating by personation), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the IPC.
The public prosecutor told reporters that Salem has already completed six years of imprisonment in the case.
Salem procured the fake passport under the fictitious identity by submitting false documents, including forged birth certificate and residential proof to the Hyderabad Regional Passport Office.
Some government officials had helped him in obtaining the fake passports for himself, for his first wife Sabeen Azmi and another for his girlfriend and starlet Monica Bedi.
Bedi’s passport was issued in the name of Sana Malik Kamal and Salem got the passport in the name of Ramil Kamal Malik.
The Andhra Pradesh Police had booked Salem, Monica Bedi, Sabeen Azmi and others in 2002 after the Intelligence Bureau got a tip-off that Salem and Bedi had used fake passports during a trip to Dubai. The case was later handed over to CBI. Out of the 10 accused chargesheeted in 2004, seven faced the trial while three are still absconding.