Gulshan Kumar murder accused acquitted

MUMBAI - Nearly 13 years after music baron Gulshan Kumar was gunned down in Mumbai, a city court Wednesday acquitted Abdul Qayyum Shaikh, considered one of the key conspirators in the case, for lack of evidence, his lawyer said.

Shaikh, who had been deported from Dubai in 2007, was a henchman of mafia don Abu Salem who is currently in custody, and is also an accused in the March 12, 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case.

“Judge S.G. Kanbarkar of Sewri fast track court, where the trial continued for over a year, observed that there was no evidence against Shaikh and accordingly acquitted him from the case,” advocate Ram Pawde told IANS.

Moreover, an approver in the case, whose testimony the police relied upon is dead and hence the prosecution could not establish Shaikh’s link with the murder conspiracy, enabling him (Shaikh) to get the benefit of doubt, Pawde explained.

Nine witnesses were examined during the trial, he said.

The prosecution alleged that Shaikh was one of the main conspirators present at all the meetings that took place in Dubai where the conspiracy to kill Gulshan Kumar was hatched.

The meetings reportedly took place in the office of Anees Ibrahim Kaskar, younger brother of wanted mafia don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar.

Shaikh was said to be a close aide of the extradited gangster Abu Salem, at whose behest Gulshan Kumar was murdered.

Abu Salem is still shown as an “absconding accused” in the Gulshan Kumar murder case as the extradition treaty signed with Portugal did not mention that he would be tried for this case.

Gulshan Kumar, who rose from a fruit-juice seller on a Delhi street to float one of the biggest music and film production companies, Super Cassettes Industries, was shot dead Aug 12, 1997 outside the Jeeteshwar Mahadev Temple in Andheri west.

Investigators had contended that music director Nadeem Saifee, of the Nadeem-Shravan duo, who is also one of the accused, had hired Abu Salem to eliminate Gulshan Kumar at the instance of a business rival, Ramesh Taurani.

However, Taurani and 17 others were acquitted earlier as the prosecution could not prove the conspiracy charges against them.

But one accused - Abdul Rauf Merchant, alias Rauf Kaalia - was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment by the then sessions judge M.L. Tahaliyani.

A few months ago, Merchant, who was granted parole by Bombay High Court, jumped parole and is absconding.