The lucre seems to have blinded the women to their men’s licentious ways. It is possible, at least in the case of Salem, that a woman is still playing a big role in his litigation. That woman is Jumaani, whom he separated from after he met Monica Bedi and got besotted with the starlet.

Salem claimed he was totally bankrupt when he was extradited back home from Portugal in November 2005. However, the don, even by conservative estimates, has since ended up spending crores of rupees on an expensive legal defence team. The law enforcement agencies, including the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), Central Bureau of Investigation and state police forces, have no clue to the identity of the person who is picking the tabs for Abu Salem’s high-profile lawsuits. He has hired costly lawyers like Niteen Pradhan and Ashok Sarogi, who have travelled to Portugal to defend him. “As far as legal fees are concerned none of his lawyers have charged anything, while the foreign trips and other expenses are met by Salem’s three brothers Abu Laees, Abu Hakim and Abu Jaeish,” claims Sarogi.

“We are flummoxed by this mysterious sponsor who is bailing Abu Salem out financially,” say ATS sleuths. “Since the transfer of funds in the country are beyond the purview of our investigations and there are specialised agencies like the Enforcement Directorate and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence who probe such matters, we wrote to them to draw their attention to Salem’s finances. We are awaiting a reply from them,” says ATS chief, Krish Pal Raghuvanshi.

... contd.