Salim Qureshi, a member of the gang led by wanted criminal Dawood Ibrahim, was denied bail by a Mumbai special court after being detained by the NIA for allegedly supporting the gang’s terrorist activities.
Salim Qureshi, also known as Salim “Fruit,” was an important member of the Dawood Ibrahim gang and a close associate of wanted gangster Chhota Shakeel. Special NIA judge BD Shelke denied Salim’s request for release.
Qureshi was detained by the NIA in August last year on suspicion of supporting the terrorist activities of an underworld figure.
According to the federal investigation agency, Qureshi actively participated in extorting sizable sums of money in Shakeel’s name from property transactions and dispute resolutions in order to raise “terror funds in furtherance of terrorist activities of D-company.”
On February 3, 2022, the agency filed a case regarding “terrorist and criminal activities” carried out by Dawood Ibrahim and his associates, including smuggling, narco-terrorism, money laundering, circulation of counterfeit money, raising funds for terrorism, and working in direct coordination with international terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Al Qaeda.
In December last year, a bail plea of Arif Abubakar Shaikh, a purported member of the D-Company, had been rejected. NIA said that wanted gangster Dawood Ibrahim and his colleagues had set up a special unit to wage terror. The NIA had detained Shaikh in May 2022.
Shaikh’s plea was contested on the grounds that he had previously been arrested in several cases, the witness statements revealed that he had engaged in extortion, and he had been paid for evicting tenants from redevelopment projects.
Shaikh had claimed that there was no evidence to charge him under UAPA. The NIA had asserted that Ibrahim’s gang, known as the D-Company, had created a special unit for “striking dread in the people of India” by attacking prominent figures, such as political leaders, businesspeople, and others,” using explosives, firearms, and other fatal weapons. Additionally, it was claimed that they intended to start things off in Delhi, Mumbai, and other large cities in order to start fights.