Salem drops big names, puts Bollywood in a tizzy

New Delhi: Underworld don Abu Salem's confessions during a narco test conducted in Bangalore in December 2005 has put Bollywood in a tizzy

Salem, under the influence of truth serum, coughed up names of a few Bollywood bigwigs, builders and Dawood Ibrahim’s men.

In a copy of a transcript available with a private TV channel, Salem spilled the beans on director Subhash Ghai, Rakesh Roshan and JP Dutta.

Salem said Subhash Ghai had paid Dawood Ibrahim's brother Anees Rs 20 to 25 lakh in extortion money, while producers Rakesh Roshan and JP Dutta had not paid even a dime.

A drugged-out Salem also answered questions on a number of crimes — from murder and extortion to the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.

BLUR_B

When asked about police officials, Salem said he knew Mumbai encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma. Salem further said he lived in constant fear of the D-gang for past several years.

He also revealed that Anees was behind the murder of T-Series owner Gulshan Kumar thereby giving a clean chit to music director Nadeem Khan in Kumar’s murder.

Salem admitted that he was guilty of only one thing - loving Monica Bedi.

What Abu Salem has said under the influence of drugs, though, will not be incriminating evidence in the court of law. But the crucial question that arises now is how will the Bollywood react to these allegations.

But Director, FSL, Bangalore, Dr B M Mohan said, “Confessions made by a semi-conscious person is not admissible in court. A Narco Analysis Test report has some validity but is not totally admissible in court, which considers the circumstances under which it was obtained and assesses its admissibility.”

Mohan added, ”Results of such tests can be used to get admissible evidence, can be collaborated with other evidence or to support other evidence. But if the result of this test is not admitted in a court, it cannot be used to support any other evidence obtained the course of routine investigation. But, in case a person is not affected by the chemical, he might take some wrong names (to mislead investigators). The results of such tests can be used to support other evidence.”

Salem, who was arrested along with former actress Monica Bedi at a Lisbon shopping mall in September 2002 following an Interpol red corner notice issued at the behest of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), was extradited from Portugal on November 11, 2005 and is currently lodged in the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai.

WHAT IS NARCOANALYSIS

Forensic Science Laboratory Bangalore and Forensic Science Laboratory Gandhinagar are the main centres for narcoanalysis for various police departments in India.

Abu Salem was subjected to narco-testing at the Bangalore Forensic Science Laboratory on December 28, 2005.

Narcoanalysis is done using sodium pentothal, in conjunction with three other tests - psychological profiling, polygraph (`lie detector') tests, and brain mapping.

Polygraph tests, which one can learn to `pass' or `fail', are used for screening and confirmation purposes only.

Brain mapping, a premature if promising technique not entirely free from controversy itself, indicates whether a subject's brain stores experiential knowledge about a certain object.

Narcoanalysis is used when investigators need oral elicitations from a suspect. For instance, if brain mapping indicates that the suspect stores information about a blue getaway car allegedly used in the crime, then narcoanalysis, according to the FSL, Bangalore, is used to provide information such as the number of the car, where it is parked, and so on.

Narco-analysis is not used in many countries, including the United States, which resisted changing the rules of interrogation after the September 11 attacks despite pressure from some authorities - including former Central Intelligence Agency chief William Webster - to use `truth serums' on uncooperative al-Qaeda and Taliban members.

The United Nations considers the use of truth drugs to be physical abuse and, therefore, a form of torture.

In India, the resort to narco-analysis as an interrogation method has been of somewhat recent origin. A few of those accused in the Godhra case were made to undergo narco-analysis in 2002 and since then, it has been used intermittently.

The judiciary has given its seal of approval for the practice in some cases- In the fake stamp paper case, it was the court that ordered the narco-analysis of the main accused, Abdul Karim Telgi. Two years ago, the Bombay High Court held that tests "involving minimal bodily harm" such as narco-analysis and brain mapping did not guaranteed by Article 20(3) violate constitutional rights, including the protection against self-incrimination.

The Bombay train blasts case, the Nithari killers case, and the "beer killer" case in Mumbai (2007) are just a few examples of recent cases that involved narcoanalysis.