Mumbai:

A special court in Mumbai on Saturday allowed an application of gangster Abu Salem, serving life sentence in the the 1993 serial blasts case, for reduced jail term in lieu of the detention period during trial.

Extradited from Portugal in 2005, Salem was convicted and awarded life sentence in 2017 for his role in the Mumbai serial blasts case. He is currently lodged in Taloja jail in neighbouring Navi Mumbai.

The jailed gangster had moved an application before the court seeking set-off for the period undergone in prison from the date of arrest-November 11, 2005 till the final judgement in the case on September 7, 2017.

Allowing his plea, the special judge for Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) BD Shelke directed the prison superintendent to give the accused set-off for the period spent during the trial in the Mumbai serial blasts case.

Besides the blast case, Salem was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2015 for the murder of city-based builder Pradeep Jain.

Salem contended that jail authorities have given him set off for the period spent by him as undertrial in the builder murder case.

However, no set off was given for the serial blast case, which amounts to contempt of the special court’s order as it had specifically mentioned that “set off be given to the accused for his custody period in this trial from the date of his arrest”, Salem’s plea said.

“It is very odd and unreasonable that in one case the under-trial period is counted and in another case it is not counted, which implies that the designated court order is not followed,” it added.

Salem contended that, in both cases, the life imprisonment will run concurrently as per the order passed by designated TADA court on September 7, 2017.

Additionally, his plea cited the extradition agreement between the government of India and Portugal, under which the main guarantee was no extra offences will be awarded.

“It was also clear that if the applicant is convicted in those offences in which he is extradited then he would not be given more than 25 years. Moreover, he will be eligible for remission and pardon as per Portuguese law,” Salem’s plea added.

The prosecution and the jail authorities rejected the claims of the convicted gangster and submitted that set off to the applicant /convict for the period undergone in custody during trial was granted as per the court’s order.

From the arguments of the advocate for Salem it is transpired he is not disputing the calculation of set-off period in the builder case , but challenging the calculation in the blasts case, the court noted.

On a query made by the court, the accused submitted a report of the jail authorities where the calculation of the set off period is from 11.11.2005 to 06.09.2017, which comes to 11 years 09 months and 26 days.

“However, the earlier jail was not ready to calculate the said period of set off in terms of the order passed by the court. It is now concluded that there is no controversy or dispute between the applicant and jail authority regarding counting the period of set off,” the court said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The claim

A picture of actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut with a man has gone viral on social media with the claim that the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) leader posed for a photograph with gangster Abu Salem. 

Several users have shared the photo to imply a connection between Ranaut and the 1993 Mumbai blast convict who is currently serving a life sentence. The viral image had an overlaid text in Hindi, which translated to, “Some memorable moments of devotees’ lioness (referring to Ranaut) with the country’s enemy Abu Salem.”  Ranaut is the BJP candidate from the Mandi constituency in the North Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, which goes to polls on June 1, in the seventh and final phase of the Indian general elections. 

An X (formerly Twitter) user sharing the image wrote, “Sister of blind devotees, spending some memorable moments with ‘Abu Salem’… (translated from Hindi).” The post was viewed 57,000 times at the time of writing this story. Archived versions of similar posts can be found here, here, and here.

Screenshot of the claims made online. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the man in the image is a former journalist, not convicted gangster Abu Salem.

What did we find?

Several news outlets have reported on Kangana Ranaut’s recent clarification on Instagram, stating that her photo with one former journalist Mark Manuel has been shared as her being photographed with gangster Abu Salem.

Taking this clue, we ran a Google Search for ‘Mark Manuel’ and checked his Instagram and Facebook accounts. We found that Manuel is a former editor at The Times of India. He has also worked as a journalist for Mid-Day and has served as a columnist for the Hindustan Times and HuffPost.

Manuel had shared the now-viral image on his official Instagram account (archived here) on September 15, 2017, with the caption, “Kangana Ranaut… love, sex and betrayal. Read it on my Facebook page.” He had also shared the same image on Facebook the same day (archived here). In the caption, Manuel wrote that this picture was taken at “Korner House in Khar some months ago.” “It was at a champagne brunch to celebrate Kangana’s film ‘Simran’ that releases today (sic),” he had written.

Further investigation into his Facebook account revealed that he had shared a post in October 2023 carrying the same image (archived here) along with several other screenshots of some news headlines. We learned that the photo in question had also gone viral in 2023 with the same claim.

In a clarification under the image, Manuel explains that a photo of Kangana Ranaut with him from a 2017 Huffington Post article (archived here) was circulated by many Congress members, claiming she was sitting with gangster Abu Salem. He further stated that Ranaut and her supporters quickly debunked the claim, pointing out that Salem has been incarcerated since 2002.

On October 1, 2023, Ranaut had also clarified on X (archived here) that the individual next to her was not gangster Abu Salem but journalist Mark Manuel. “I don’t believe congress people really think he is the dreaded gangster Abu Salem hanging out with me casually in a mumbai bar. He is ex TOI entertainment editor his name is Mark Manuel (sic),” she wrote.

The collage below includes publicly available photos of Abu Salem and Mark Manuel and Abu Salem and shows that it was the latter who was photographed with Ranaut in the viral photo.

Abu Salem (left), Mark Manuel (center) and the viral image. (Source: The Indian Express/Instagram/ @markmanuel2609/ X)

The verdict

A 2017 photograph of actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut posing with entertainment journalist Mark Manuel has been falsely portrayed as evidence of Ranaut “partying” with the notorious gangster Abu Salem. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.

(This story was originally published by Logically Facts, and republished by NDTV as part of the Shakti Collective)