Ahmedabad, Jul 2 (PTI) A businessman previously sentenced to life under the Anti-Hijacking Act for leaving a hijack threat note onboard was later acquitted by the Gujarat High Court. He has now been detained by the Ahmedabad crime branch for allegedly cheating a Mumbai jeweller, an official revealed.
Birju Salla, accused in a Ponzi scam in Maharashtra and of defrauding a jeweller by not returning gold and diamond valued at Rs 13 crore, was detained from an undisclosed location. He is currently being questioned by the crime branch. Salla was on the run for the cheating case filed against him last month. According to an FIR lodged on June 10, Salla allegedly deceived the jeweller by not returning the borrowed gold, silver, and diamonds. Despite never being arrested for this ordeal, his pre-arrest bail plea was lately dismissed by a Mumbai court.
Salla was the first individual charged under the stringent Anti-Hijacking Act, 2016, after allegedly leaving a note in the business class of a Jet Airways Mumbai-Delhi flight on October 30, 2017. The note, drafted in English and Urdu, claimed the presence of hijackers and explosives aboard the aircraft, demanding diversion to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). According to prosecution claims, Salla crafted this ploy hoping that it would lead to the shutdown of Jet Airways' Delhi operations so his girlfriend could return to Mumbai.
On June 11, 2019, a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Ahmedabad sentenced Salla to life imprisonment under the Anti-Hijacking Act, 2016. However, the Gujarat High Court in August 2023 overturned the NIA court's verdict, citing the trial court had convicted him for hijacking “on the premise of evidence which is tainted with doubt.”
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