Bombay HC rejects Abu Salem's plea seeking parole to get married

Abu Salem who had approached the Bombay High Court seeking 45 days parole for marrying Kausar Bahar got rejected by Bombay High Court on Tuesday. Abu Salem is a convict of 1993 Bombay serial Blasts that killed 257 and injured 713 people and is currently lodged in Taloja jail. The authorities had rejected his application in April on the premise of security issue. Kausar Bahar is a Mumbai resident. With this plea, Abu Salem wanted to get married for the third time.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice V K Tahilramani and Justice MS Sonak rejected the plea on the premises that person is convicted for terror charges are not eligible for parole/furlough leave under the prison rules.

Salem had moved the court on the ground that he has been in custody for the last several years and he has made a promise to the woman whom he wanted to marry.

Abu Salem who was represented by Advocate Farhana Shah asserted that the Konkan divisional Commissioner and the judicial authorities rejected his parole plea without applying their mind. Salem affirmed that he had married Kausar over the phone when he was being taken to Lucknow for a court hearing during a train journey in 2014.

Abu Salem has been serving jail terms since his extradition from Portugal in 2005. Salem was again sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment last month, by a local court in the national capital in connection with a case where he demanded Rs 5 crore as protection money from a Delhi-based businessman in 2002.

There was also a case of a 26-year-old woman had filed a plea in TADA court seeking permission to marry Abu Salem occurred in 2015. Salem and four others were convicted in the Mumbai blasts case by the special court in Mumbai.