Abu Salem meets wife Kausar on train journeys for court hearings, pictures surface

Gangster Abu Salem reportedly married Thane's Sayyed Bahaar Kausar in 2014, with a Muslim cleric presiding over the nikah ceremony over the telephone.

File Photo

New Delhi: Pictures of gangster Abu Salem, who reportedly got married on a train while being taken by police to Uttar Pradesh for a court hearing, and his wife Sayyed Bahaar Kausar have surfaced.

The Mumbai Police had in 2014 conducted an inquiry with Salem's defence counsel, lock-up in-charge and security personnel who were deployed for escorting the gangster in this regard.

According to media reports, Salem married the woman from Thane, on the train to Lucknow, with a Muslim cleric presiding over the nikah ceremony over the telephone. The wedding, purported to have taken place in January 2014, was being seen as a security breach.

However, last year, Kausar had approached the special TADA court and sought permission for marriage with Salem. She had contended that following a tabloid report that Salem had secretly married her in 2014, the police during their probe asked many people about the alleged marriage and also showed a photograph showing Salem with her, which sullied her character.

The gangster had replied after a week, stating that he was ready to marry Kausar so that she could “meet and answer all the relatives, friends and well-wishers with her head up in the society”.

The photographs, however, indicate that it was a bluff played by Kausar and Salem.

On Sunday, Mid-Day published photographs, captured between 2012 and 2015, showing the gangster and the 26-year-old Kausar. In one of the pics, the duo are seen sharing a meal. Notably, Kausar's maternal grandfather handles Salem's paperwork.

He is also seen talking on a cell phone at a railway station waiting room in another picture.

The photographs also show Salem’s numerous meetings with other family members during train journeys.

Notably, Salem has been travelling to Lucknow and Delhi for the hearing of his cases that are on trial.

Salem, extradited from Portugal in 2005, is facing trial in eight cases in India, including the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, and is currently lodged in Taloja Jail, Maharashtra.