New Delhi, Sep 30 (IANS) Rejecting the bail application of underworld gangster Abu Salem in an extortion case, a Delhi court Wednesday accepted his plea that his trial should not be conducted via video conferencing from a Mumbai jail at this stage.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja accepted Salem’s plea for not holding trial through video conferencing and posted the matter for Oct 13 for recording the statements of witnesses.

The court had earlier proposed the idea of conducting Salem’s trial via video conferencing to avert any possible threat in taking him to and fro Mumbai.

Salem on the other hand contended that there was no need for conducting the trial through video conferencing.

Salem’s counsel Arvind Shukla opposed the plea of Delhi Police who want his trial to be conducted through video conferencing, and said: “Why should his trial be separated from other accused? There is a sovereign promise of the Indian authorities before the Portuguese court that he (Salem) would be tried as a normal prisoner.”

“During the course of argument for conducting trial, it is submitted by the prosecution (Delhi Police) that the state does not want to press video conferencing at this stage. So the plea of the accused (Salem) is allowed,” the court said.

Salem, who was extradited from Portugal in November 2005, is being tried along with three others in the case.

He is being tried - along with 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.1 crore from him in 2002.