Finally, a Lisbon court has accepted New Delhi's request for extradition of the underworld don, Salem Qayoom Ansari, alias Abu Salem. Arrested in Lisbon in September 2002, Abu Salem is the prime suspect in the 1993 bombing that killed 257 people and wounded more than 1,000 in Mumbai. Wanted in more than 60 cases of murder, attempted murder, extortion and abduction, Salem’s progress from a tailor to one of India’s most wanted criminals exemplifies the might of the organized criminal world.

Abu Salem left his village Sarai Mir, in Uttar Pradesh's Azamgarh district, and moved to Mumbai. He was a tailor, ran a telephone booth and sold cutlery in the Mumbai suburbs. In a scuffle with local boys over protection money, Salem murdered one of them and soon became a shooter for the Mumbai underworld. Before long, he came into contact with Anees Ibrahim, Mumbai don Dawood Ibrahim´s brother. He was soon entrusted with supplying guns to contract killers. Thereafter, he began extorting money from Bollywood stars on behalf of Dawood, and began to climb the crime ladder with film financing, smuggling, arms sales, hawala, fake currency, and extortion rackets.

Abu Salem’s high point was when he liaised with two top Karachi-based smugglers, Mustafa Majnu and Mohammad Dosa, who brought the explosives used in the Mumbai bombings. After that, Abu Salem fled to Karachi with the remaining members of Dawood Ibrahim's organisation. In 1994, he is believed to have supervised the assassinations of Maharashtra BJP leaders Ramdas Naik and Prem Singh. For the next three years he remained a key figure in Anees Ibrahim's organisation, working from safe houses in Nairobi, Lagos, Bahrain and Dubai, under false identities. In December 1997, he was picked up by the Dubai Police in connection with charges of fraud against a car import firm run by his brothers Salim and Nayeem. But he managed to flee on a Pakistani passport.

Sometime in 1998, Abu Salem broke with Anees Ibrahim over sharing the underworld's earnings from Mumbai’s film industry. He then began establishing his own sphere of influence. On 12 August 1998, the Abu Salem group shot music magnate, Gulshan Kumar, allegedly to help a rival music producer, Nadeem Akhtar Saifi. Abu Salem's reign of terror had started. Film world figures who refused to share their earnings faced death. In January 2000, Abu Salem's operatives opened fire on film producer Rakesh Roshan. Other film world figures targeted for extortion included J.P. Dutta, Shah Rukh Khan, Amrish Puri, Salman Khan, Preity Zinta and most recently actress Manisha Koirala's secretary, Ajit Dewani, who, Mumbai Police officials say, was killed because he failed to deliver on promises made.

During this period Abu Salem realized that Dubai was not safe due to his rivalry with the Dawood gang. He went to the United States where he started buying properties. As he was about to make his empire functional, Indian agencies contacted the FBI. Both agencies suspect Abu Salem of being part of the Al Qaeda terror network. Abu Salem fled from America to Portugal and Interpol promptly informed CBI about his escape to that country. The Portuguese authorities eventually arrested him in Lisbon in September 2002.  His girlfriend and close associate, former Indian cine-star Monica Bedi is believed to have set up Salem's arrest.

Thereafter, the Indian government has striven hard for his extradition. The Portuguese government dropped one of the three charges against Salem – of marrying a local girl to get a residence permit. However, the two other charges â€â€