Mumbai Economic Offences Wing takes custody of hijack threat accused Birju Salla in Rs 12.77 crore fraud case

Ahmedabad: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai police took custody of Birju Salla, a Mumbai-based businessman previously convicted in a hijack threat case, from the Ahmedabad city crime branch on Thursday morning. The action follows his arrest in a multi-crore cheating case involving a jewellery businessman in Mumbai.According to crime branch officials, Salla was arrested on Wednesday from a five-star hotel on Ashram Road where he checked in under a false identity. He was wanted in connection with a Rs 12.77 crore jewellery fraud registered by the EOW of Mumbai police. Soon after his arrest, a Mumbai police team arrived in Ahmedabad and formally took over his custody for further investigation.Salla is already under scrutiny in two separate threat note cases — one involving a bomb threat on an IndiGo flight from Ahmedabad to Jeddah in Nov 2024, and another targeting the Ahmedabad airport in Jan this year. He gained notoriety in 2017 after planting a hijack threat note on a Jet Airways flight and was the first person to be booked under the stringent Anti-Hijacking Act, 2016. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but was later acquitted by the Gujarat high court in 2023 due to lack of evidence.In the Mumbai case, complainant Shailesh Jain, a jewellery businessman from Zaveri Bazaar, alleged that Salla took jewellery worth Rs 14 crore on approval in Nov 2024 and failed to return articles valued at Rs 12.77 crore. His anticipatory bail was denied on June 27. Salla is now being questioned in both fraud and bomb hoax cases.