BHOPAL, 15 October 2006 — Former Bollywood actress Monica Bedi, the friend and companion of alleged gangster Abu Salem, who has been brought here to Bhopal from Hyderabad to stand trial in a fake passport case, was presented before Judicial Magistrate Dinesh Kumar Dangi on Friday through video-conferencing for security reasons from the central jail.
Monica was questioned by the judge through video-conferencing and the judge has fixed the next hearing for tomorrow. A supplementary charge-sheet was filed against her in the case on the occasion.
She expressed the wish to meet her parents when the judge queried if she faced any problem during the journey from Hyderabad, where she was convicted recently in a similar case.
When the judicial magistrate told Monica that her local lawyers wanted to meet her, she refused and requested the lawyers to meet her parents. The video-conferencing continued for nearly three minutes.
It may be recalled that the Bhopal police had registered a case on Nov. 28, 2001 against Abu Salem, his wife Sameera Jumani and Monica for preparing fake passports under the assumed names of Danish Baig, Rubina Baig and Fouzia Usman, respectively. Two local residents — Abdul Siraj and his brother Kabir alias Baba — were also accused in the case for assisting the trio in getting fake passport. Both were already on bail. The case was later handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s premier investigating agency.
Abu Salem, who was extradited to India from Portugal last year, was yet to be produced before the Bhopal court, while his wife was reportedly absconding. Monica, who was convicted by a Hyderabad court recently in a similar case and sentenced to five years’ rigorous imprisonment, was first produced before the Bhopal court in December last year.
In contrast to the high-voltage drama witnessed at her arrival last year when police made Monica get down at Itarsi railway station, 92 kilometers from Bhopal, wear a veil and kept in a women’s police station that was turned into a virtual fortress, this time there were no theatrics. But cameramen did have a scuffle with the Andhra Pradesh police team escorting her.
