Abu Salem's phone marriage: TADA court orders probe

In a sequence that would put most Bollywood potboilers in the shade, gangster Abu Salem is believed to have got married to a Mumbra woman while he was on a train being escorted by cops to Lucknow to appear in court.

The nikaah was solemnised after Salem and his bride took their oaths over cellphones and the wedding solemnised by a qazi.

The policemen accompanying Salem are understood to have been the witnesses. The marriage took place on January 8, according to reports.

But the Thane police chief, under whose watch Salem is imprisoned in Yerwada jail, is not amused. Not because he wasn't invited but that Salem broke the rules by getting married while in jail. Commissioner K.P. Raghuvanshi has now been asked by the designated TADA court in Mumbai on Tuesday to conduct an inquiry and submit a report on it within 10 days.

Special Judge G.A. Sanap of the Tada court asked the Thane police to conduct the investigations after taking suomoto cognizance of a report which appeared in a Mumbai-based tabloid which claimed that Salem had gotten married to a 27-yearold woman from Mumbra. The judge has asked the Thane police to investigate as the cops escorting were from the Thane protection branch.

The judge has ordered the inquiry as per law an undertial has to take permission from the court to get married while in custody. Since Salem had not applied for such permission he could be in trouble if the Thane police do find that Salem got married.

Very little is known about the woman but she would be regularly seen outside whenever Salem was being brought to hearings and was apparently involved in controlling part of his business empire.

However, Salem himself denied the rumours of his marriage and said that the reports were fake and that he didn't get married. Incidentally this is not the first time that Salem's alleged love life has come in to focus. In the past there were reports of a lawyer who was defending him having an affair with him. The lawyer denied the allegations and had even tried to commit suicide blaming Salem's nephew Rashid for spreading the false rumours.

Salem extradited from Portugal in 2007 was previously allegedly married to actress Monika Bedi, while the latter denies the marriage, Salem claims that she was indeed married to him. Salem is accused in the Mumbai serial blasts case and a number of cases of murder and extortion.