VANITY OF A DON

If not a mafia don, he believed he'd have been a movie star giving Salman Khan a run for his money. Abu Salem did, eventually, keep the industry on its toes.

On May 30 this year, the Mumbai sessions court was crammed with more men in uniform than the accused.

Abu Salem was easy to spot with his manicured look. No hair out of place. Clothes that bespoke fashion labels. I couldn't figure out the make of the shoes. Crocodile leather perhaps? In my two decades of crime reporting, I have never come across a mannequin of a gangster. There were those who looked like they spat bullets with their bore-like mouths and coarse mannerisms, some who had eyes of a snake, others like that of a fox. Most of them had some anomalies that literally stuck out like a sore thumb -extra fingers, extra toes or weird ears. But nobody bothered about their overall upkeep the way Abu Salem does. If and when he is released from jail, he will enrich a lot of salons and spas.

When I tell him that I am writing a book on him, he is dismissive. "You should not do smallscale things like writing books. Write a script on my life which should be made into a movie.Directors will pay you sackfuls of cash for my story." When I remain unimpressed with his suggestion, he doesn't like it one bit. Abu Salem, whom I have known since 1997, likes to think that he is a Good Samaritan who is much misunderstood or a modern-day Robin Hood whose trajectory has been cut short by the CBI.He probably thinks that T-series Gulshan Kumar, builder Pradeep Jain and the others whose life he cut short were roadblocks that came in his way (Salem has not yet been convicted in either of these cases, but the Pradeep Jain verdict is weeks away).

But then most criminals and gangsters don't express remorse over their actions. Over the years, I have come across all kinds of crooks and criminals -scam artists, murderers and mass murderers, rapists, junkies, transgender criminals, white-collared criminals and even beautiful members of the fairer sex -but not one of them fussed about his or her looks the way Salem did.

I heard from people close to him tha he had delusions about him being better looking than Salman Khan. To enhance his looks, he has gone un der the knife to do a nose job and a face-lift. He has often confided to those around him that if he had not ended up as a gangster he would have been a top Bollywood star giving Salman Khan a run for his money! For a man who doesn't even have a gang per se, Abu Salem hardly took a decade to transform from a gangster to a don. And this without having a single, dedicated gang member. You will never find an Abu Salem gang member in any prison. He used to hire freelancers (freshers who would do anything for some quick cash) and was the one who started the trend of paying Rs 5,000 for mi grants from Uttar Pradesh who came here for a specific kill and then disappeared into the bowels of the badlands of UP. In the mid 90s, the Mumbai police were left red-faced after this gang from UP ran mayhem in the city . I have written about several kinds of gangsters and crime syndicates and ordinarily would have tossed Abu Salem in the recesses of my memory way back in the mid-90s when I started my ca reer as a crime reporter but for the Gulshan Ku mar killing. A music magnate and a self made entrepreneur running helter-skelter to dodge criminals en route to a temple but finally being shot down like a dog. And the man who ordered his killing sitting in some faraway land and listening on a phone.

The Gulshan Kumar killing made Bollywood introspect about dalliances with the mafia. While earlier it was kosher to be seen dining and wining or watching cricket with the dons in distant lands, Abu Salem's tryst with Bollywood changed everything. It also changed the dynamics of Bollywood funding forcing it to go legit.

Bollywood, of course, convulsed with fear.Rajiv Rai who made Tridev, Mohra and Gupt, left the shores of India forever fearing for his safety (he returned after two decades); Subhash Ghai, Rakesh Roshan and Manmohan Shetty of Adlabs were all targeted by Abu Salem.

Salem's story is amazing because he married a Bollywood starlet, allowing his first wife to live in America and run his business; he has 52 police cases against him but he can only be tried in eight cases under specific counts as per Portugal-India expedition treaty .

If Bombay, the city of Gold, made Dawood Ibrahim, Bollywood alone made Abu Salem a multi-billionaire. At last count, his wealth stood at Rs 400 crore.

Zaidi is the author of My Name is Abu Salem.