S Hussain Zaidi’s new book on Dawood Ibrahim introduces readers to his close aide Salim ‘Kutta’
Dawood Ibrahim’s close aide Salim ‘Kutta’.
Salim Mira Moideen Shaikh was one of the strongest men in the D-Company. He was also always ready for a fight. Due to his rabid nature and dark complexion, he was nicknamed Salim Kutta. He was a native of Kotta Nellore in Tamil Nadu. In Mumbai, he was involved in rioting cases.“But how did Salim get involved in the blasts?” I asked. His name also evoked a reaction from Neeraj Kumar, who had conducted a cross-border operation to arrest him; a surgical arrest in the mid-1990s, for sure, if not a strike.Salim Kutta used to be a bodyguard for the Dossa family. Mohammad Dossa used to help Salim with medical expenses and gained the latter’s undying loyalty. Salim’s violent nature was of good use for Dossa. In the late 1980s, Salim was also part of a gang known as the “Arjun” gang which was modelled after the gang led by Sunny Deol in his superhit film of the same name. This gang also had the blessings of Mustafa Dossa aka Mustafa Majnu. By 1992, Salim was firmly entrenched in Mohammad Dossa’s good books. Members of the Arjun gang were also sent to Pakistan for training in the usage of arms and ammunition.While Neeraj Kumar was investigating the bombings, he was hell-bent on chasing down those who played a key role in the bombings.Salim had participated in landing the arms and ammunition at the Gosabara Coast in Gujarat. These were used for the Black Friday bombings in 1993. Hence, he was on the radar of the Gujarat Police. The Gujarat landings were orchestrated by Mustafa Dossa, whereas two other landings were organized by Tiger Memon at Dighi and Shekhadi coasts in Raigad district of Maharashtra. Thus, Salim Kutta became a natural target for Neeraj Kumar.After weeks of waiting, things heated up with the arrival of an intelligence report at the CBI headquarters in New Delhi. Holding the INTREP in his hands, and reading it over and over again, Neeraj Kumar (then joint director of the CBI) made a concrete effort to keep his zeal in control.The CBI Headquarters had pint-sized cabins for members of their Special Task Force who were investigating the blasts. The walls of those cabins were so thin that officers seated in adjacent cabins could hear each other’s conversations even if they were top secret! For this precise reason, Kumar resisted the urge to call his juniors to his cabin and brief them about the report which had come from India’s top agency – the famed Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW).According to the report, dreaded terrorist Salim Kutta, an accused in the Bombay bomb blasts, was said to be working at a grocery shop named “Abhinandan” in Kathmandu. There were also reports of two other accused, Shabir and Firoz, who were said to be spotted around the same area in Kathmandu. Neeraj Kumar stifled a chuckle. Who could have imagined that a most wanted man from the D-Company would be hiding in a grocery shop in Nepal’s capital?In all honesty, Kumar expected this intel to turn out to be another dud, the likes of which would get thrown at them with abandon in this game of cops and criminals. Now he had two options. To put in a half-hearted attempt or go all in. He gave it some serious thought and allowed his policeman’s instincts to take over. Finally, he decided to take a leap of faith.But there was one problem in going after Salim Kutta. Though he oversaw the STF, Kumar lacked the manpower he would need to arrest Kutta if the intel was legit. The CBI is a tremendously understaffed organization suffering from a perennial crunch in resources.Kumar was aware that his batchmate from the IPS academy, Kuldeep Sharma, who was currently working with Gujarat Police, was also on the lookout for Salim Kutta as the criminal had taken part in landing explosives and ammunition on the coast of Gujarat.Since they had trained together at the police academy, Kumar decided to team up with Kuldeep Sharma and launch an operation to arrest Salim. Another officer from the Jammu and Kashmir cadre was chosen by Kumar as a part of the CBI team for this mission.The joint team reached Kathmandu and camped at the Annapoorna Hotel while awaiting formal approval from the Nepal government to commence their operation.Contrary to popular belief, the CBI is barred from carrying out any secret operations that are not sanctioned by the government. This is the direct result of the diplomacy involved between the two countries and the fact that the CBI reports directly to the Central government. Misadventures or even the slightest of mistakes of the CBI can cause direct embarrassment to the prime minister’s office. Kumar was bound to the established protocol and procedures.The red tape of bureaucracy began taking its toll. As with any kind of government work, there was an inordinate amount of delay in procuring the requisite approvals. Kumar was getting edgier by the minute. What if Salim got wind of their plans? If he escaped now, tracking him again would prove to be a monumental task.Kumar decided to act. He took along his CBI subordinates and a sub-inspector from Nepal Police down the streets of Kathmandu in a private vehicle. He wanted to inspect the location of the Abhinandan grocery shop where the three suspects (Salim, Shabir and Firoz) were supposedly working.The team finally reached a spot from where they could keep an eye on the shop but they were still unsure of the presence of their quarry. Kumar spotted a telephone booth located right in front of the shop. On the pretext of making a call, Kumar entered the booth to get a closer look at the people inside the store. Much to Kumar’s surprise, a tall, muscled man was seated at the counter of the shop. From the photographs sent by the R&AW, Kumar recognized the man as none other than Salim Kutta!Excerpted with permission from From Dubai To Karachi: The Dawood Saga Continues, S Hussain Zaidi, Penguin India.
