High Court upholds life imprisonment of Rauf Merchant in Gulshan Kumar murder case

No evidence against Ramesh Taurani, Maharashtra government’s appeal dismissed

The Bombay High Court has given its verdict on the petition related to the T-Series founder Gulshan Kumar murder case. In this, the conviction of one of the murder convicts, Abdul Rauf alias Dawood Merchant, has been upheld. Abdul Rauf is the accomplice of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the sessions court. The High Court clearly held that Abdul Rauf does not deserve any leniency as he had already fled to Bangladesh on the pretext of parole.

While Ramesh Taurani has been acquitted in the case. The court has not found any evidence against him. That is why the Maharashtra government’s petition against Taurani was dismissed.

A bench of Justices Jadhav and Borkar delivered the verdict of the case. A total of four petitions related to the murder of Gulshan Kumar had come to the Bombay High Court. In this, three appeals were against the conviction of Rauf Merchant, Rakesh Chanchala Pinnam and Rakesh Khaokar. Merchant was convicted in the Gulshan Kumar murder case, now the court has upheld his sentence.

Another accused Abdul Rashid has been convicted by the Bombay High Court in the Gulshan Kumar murder case. He was earlier acquitted by the sessions court. Dawood’s henchman Abdul Rashid has been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Bombay High Court. On August 12, 1997, Gulshan Kumar was returning home from the temple when some miscreants opened fire on Gulshan Kumar.

Be aware that Gulshan’s death was quite shocking for everyone. No one had thought that someone would openly shoot such a big personality and leave. In fact, Gulshan Kumar was murdered at the behest of singer Nadeem. Nadeem’s anger at the loss of name in the industry so much dominated his mind that he made up his mind to kill Gulshan Kumar.
For this work he took the help of the underworld. The underworld had a direct impact on Bollywood in those days. Dawood Ibrahim used to run his business from Dubai and Abu Salem was Dawood’s henchman at that time. After getting Nadeem’s call, he held a meeting in Dubai and called Gulshan Kumar.

Abu Salem threatened Gulshan Kumar with a ransom of ten crore rupees i.e. protection money and work to Nadeem. Gulshan Kumar panicked and told this to his younger brother Kiran Kumar. It is said that a few days before that, Gulshan Kumar had allegedly given one installment to the Dawood gang. He didn’t want to give her money again. So he thought it better to keep quiet on this threat.

When Abu Salem did not get this money on time, he decided that Gulshan Kumar would have to be killed. Three shooters were hired for this and they opened fire on the morning of 12 August 1997 outside a temple in Juhu. Gulshan was leaving from there after worshiping. Gulshan was shot in the head, when he tried to escape, the other two shooters fired 16 bullets at him. When his driver tried to save him, the shooters shot him too. After which Gulshan Kumar was taken to the hospital but he had died on the way.