Of the 19 arrested for the August 12, 1997 murder, only sharpshooter Rauf Merchant was handed a life sentence in April 2002. The screws were tightened in the same year after the Dubai police deported 12 of Dawood Ibrahim’s trusted aides. One of them was prime accused Abdul Qayyum Shaikh alias Qayyum Chachaa, who was also an accused in the 1993 Mumbai blast case. He is said to have conspired along with Abu Salem to kill Gulshan Kumar. With Qayyum’s arrest the case was reopened. But since then, the Mumbai Police Crime Branch is yet to conclusively close the case and nab those who had hatched the conspiracy.

The first 400-page chargesheet filed on November 28, 1997 named 25 persons as accused. Two of them — Abdul Qayyum Shaikh and Mohammad Ali Shaikh — were still being tried at the Sewree fast-track court when Mohammad died on August 10 this year.

Shaikh was an “approver” who had turned hostile and his case had been separated from the rest. In his alleged confession as an “approver”, Shaikh had named all the 19 accused including himself, as present in Dubai where the conspiracy was allegedly hatched. He had also named music director Nadeem Akhtar Saifee (of Nadeem-Shravan fame) who had allegedly attended the meeting and had decided to kill Gulshan Kumar by hiring gangster Abu Salem. But later Shaikh told the court that the police had forged his signature and he had never given any confession and nor had he asked for pardon. His death is thought to be a blow to the case.

The Mumbai Police Crime Branch had based its case against Abu Salem, Nadeem and now-acquitted Tips Industries owner Ramesh Taurani mostly on Shaikh’s statement. An ailing Shaikh (74) died at his Ghatkopar residence of natural causes.

“Shaikh’s testimonial was supposed to be the most crucial in the case,” said defence lawyer Subhash Kanse.

“While we were preparing to prove that Shaikh had never confessed his role in the murder, the police had relied on the alleged confession given by Shaikh. His death would automatically hamper the case of another deported aide of Dawood Ibrahim, Abdul Qayyum Shaikh,” he added.

Qayyum was arrested after the first case was wound up and a supplementary chargesheet was filed against him. While Qayyum’s case is being separately tried at the Sessions Court, no charges against Abu Salem and Nadeem have been framed, although they were initially named as suspects.

While extradited gangster Abu Salem remains “an absconding accused” in the supplementary chargesheet, music director Nadeem was relieved by the London High Court which rejected the Indian Government’s plea to extradite him. Moreover, a stricture was passed by the London High Court against Mumbai Police, saying, “the evidence is tainted.” Salem, on the other hand, could not be tried as India had not mentioned him as an accused in this case while extraditing him from Portugal.

While the state is yet to appoint a special prosecutor in Qayyum’s case, it has already submitted a list of 205 witnesses whom it wants to examine. This includes actors Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aditya Pancholi, Jackie Shroff, Chunky Pandey and Pooja Bhatt. As per the prosecution’s case, these actors had visited Dubai to perform in a show organised by one Shaikh Sarjahan. The prosecution had alleged that during the performance the actors had come to know about the conspiracy. The prosecution has also included a list of singers, directors and producers whom it wants to examine.

Chunky Pandey had testified earlier and denied to have any knowledge and was declared “hostile”.

Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam had removed other actors from the list saying that their testimony did not account for any new revelations. “Ironically, the same list was produced in 1997,” said advocate Thakur Teg Bahadur Singh, who represents Qayyum.

The case is now adjourned to August 25 when the court will decide if the witnesses have to be examined and those who have already testified would be called again or not. Needless to say, it’s going to take some more time before the guilty are punished in this case.