September 22, 2002	Sunday	Rajab 14, 1423

NEW DELHI, Sept 21: India has asked Portugal to deport Abu Salem, the gangster and an alleged mastermind of the 1993 bombings in Bombay that killed and injured hundreds of people, Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krisha Advani said on Saturday.

Interpol arrested Salem, along with his girlfriend Monica Bedi, and another man, in Portugal on Wednesday on charges of carrying fake travel documents.

As many as 60 murder cases are pending against 41-year-old Salem, who over the past nine years as a fugitive has created bases in several countries including South Africa, according to India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Advani told reporters in the eastern city of Bhubaneswar that a formal note had been sent to the Portuguese embassy in New Delhi and the Indian embassy in Lisbon seeking the deportation of the underworld don.

Advani said if necessary, an assurance may be given to the Portuguese government that Salem, if deported to India, would not be given the death penalty.

Under European extradition and deportation laws, no offender will be deported to any country that practises capital punishment.

“In this case, it is possible and Indian law permits that the necessary assurance may be given to the concerned government,” Advani said, as quoted by the Press Trust of India news agency.

Another difficulty may be that India does not have an extradition treaty with Portugal, home ministry sources said.

The CBI said Saturday it was putting together a team which would reach Lisbon “early next week” to fetch Salem once diplomatic and legal hurdles were out of the way.

“Modalities on the exact timing and composition of the team are being worked out in consultations with the ministries of home and external affairs, the Indian ambassador in Lisbon and the Portuguese authorities,” CBI joint director Ashwani Kumar told a press conference here.

“The issue is being dealt with at the highest level and a team will be sent as expeditiously as possible,” he said and added the departure was likely “early next week.”

“But merely sending a team will not help as it has to have proper assistance from the local police and lawyers and efforts are underway in this direction,” he said.

Kumar said the CBI and Interpol came to know three months back that Salem and Bedi were living in Portugal under the names of Arsalan Mohsin Ali and Sana Malik, and added that the Lisbon police were then tipped off.

Advani said Salem and the others had been remanded in custody in Lisbon for three months.

“I am hopeful this work will be done and he will be produced before a court in India to face the charges against him,” he said.

Salem was due to appear before an examining magistrate in Lisbon on Saturday, Portugal’s Lusa news agency said.

The Bombay-based gangster fled India after the March 1993 bombings, India’s deadliest urban attacks, which left more than 300 people dead or maimed.

Salem is widely known as the right hand man of Dawood Ibrahim, India’s most wanted gangster who is accused of co-masterminding the 1993 bombings and heading a powerful organised crime ring in Bombay, India’s commercial hub.

Meanwhile, police in Bombay, where Salem ran his fiefdom, said they were stepping up efforts to get the man behind bars in India.—AFP