Mumbai, Dec. 16 :
Fugitive music director Nadeem Akhtar Saifee wants to make melody once again, but from the far away shores of Britain.
The controversial composer of the Nadeem-Shravan duo, who has been holed up in the United Kingdom ever since he was made an accused in the murder of music baron Gulshan Kumar in August 1997, lost his case against the Mumbai police at the court of the Bow Street magistrate in September this year.
Nadeem?s fate will now be decided by British home secretary Jack straw.
Rejecting the Bollywood composer?s appeal against the police petition to extradite him, Bow Street magistrate Christofer Pratt held that the investigators from Mumbai had presented enough evidence to warrant Nadeem?s ??committal?? to complicity in Kumar?s murder.
The composer?s lawyer in Mumbai, Majid Memon, said here today that Nadeem wants to resume working with his partner Shravan. However, since his final appeal in the London high court is still pending, Nadeem will compose from the British capital.
??He has been without work for more than two years. He has been working on his compositions even in London. He now wants to start working, since his trial is over and only his appeal is pending. That will be decided only by April 2000,? Memon told The Telegraph.
Shravan has been operating solo in Mumbai ever since Nadeem went to Britain two years ago. Shravan was unavailable for comment since he was busy recording at a suburban studio. Memon claimed that Nadeem was getting offers and he would soon advertise his availability to Bollywood producers in film glossies. The duo had churned out a series of hits in the early nineties like Aashiqui, Dil hai ke manta nahin and Saajan.
Nadeem was in the UK when Gulshan Kumar, owner of T-series, was shot dead by hired gangsters of Abu Salem on August 12, 1997. The composer has not stepped out of the country since then and had appealed against the Mumbai police?s request to extradite him, saying he feared he would not get a fair trial.
However, Nadeem received a jolt after another accused, Mohammed Shaikh alias Chacha, turned approver. In his statement, Shaikh said the Bollywood composer paid Rs 25 lakh as supari ? Mumbai underworld jargon for money paid for contract killing ? to Abu Salem?s gang in Dubai.
Though Shaikh later turned hostile and went back on his confession, the Bow Street magistrate refused to accept the withdrawal.