New Delhi, Aug 4 (IANS) A city court Tuesday asked Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail authorities to explore the option of recording through video conferencing the statements of gangworld leader Abu Salem who is being tried here in a seven-year-old extortion case.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja issued the notice in the wake of security threats to Salem from other underworld gangs.

Salem, who is lodged in Mumbai’s high-security jail, was brought to Tis Hazari courts here for every hearing in the case amid tight security arrangements with scores of paramilitary personnel deployed in and around the court complex.

Extradited from Portugal in November 2005, Salem is being tried along with three aides - Ishtiya Ahmed, C.P. Rai and Sadiq Ali - for allegedly making threat calls to businessmen Puneet Khanna and Rajat Nagrath, owner of Delhi-based Allied Communications, and demanding Rs.10 million in 2002.

Salem’s counsel Arvind Kumar Shukla sought time from the court to respond to the court’s video conferencing suggestion.

The Mumbai police also moved an application before the court seeking its direction to send Salem to Tihar Jail as he was to be presented before the sessions court at Patiala House Aug 6, which was allowed by the court.

The court adjourned the hearings on the bail plea of Salem for Aug 10 and for recording statements of witnesses in the case for Aug 19.