dhaka abdul rauf merchant who was convicted of killing audio king gulshan kumar in 1997 was arrested in bangladesh nearly a week after he escaped from a mumbai jail following his release on furlough officials said on thursday acting on an intelligence tipoff a joint team of police and detectives arrested rauf who had been a sharpshooter of dawood ibrahim gang in a late last night raid at eastern brahmanbaria we have arrested rauf who was hiding in a rented house in brahmanbaria assistant police commissioner muhibul islam khan who led the operation said also known as rashid dawood merchant and raja rauf was later escorted to dhaka under tight security for initial interrogation the staterun bss news agency said police also arrested kamal miah owner of the house for sheltering an international criminal merchant a resident of mumbra was released on furlough for 14 days by the bombay high court last month on condition that he would report to police every day he reported for a week but thereafter stopped coming to mumbra police station mumbai police had said on may 23 furlough is a leave granted to a convict every two years for a fortnight to visit his family and return to jail after expiry of the period security officials in bangladesh preferring anonymity said rauf managed obtain a passport identifying himself as sheikh abdur rahman of south mourail area of brahmanbaria this is for the first time that merchant was released from jail on furlough after he was given life sentence for killing gulshan kumar merchant was convicted in 2001 while 18 other accused were acquitted by the trial court as police could not prove conspiracy charges against them prime accused in the case music director nadeem saifee is absconding since kumars murder as nadeem was in london and did not return after kumars murder the indian government had initiated extradition proceedings in a uk court against him but was not successful the london court did not believe the version of an accusedturnedapprover saying his confession appeared to be a suspect later the approver turned hostile in the court as a result of which the conspiracy angle could not be proved nadeem had moved the bombay high court in 2006 seeking cancellation of nonbailable warrants and proclamation order issued against him but his plea was rejected it is the case of prosecution that nadeem had hired gangster abu salem who was then working for dawood to kill kumar at the instance of a business rival ramesh taurani salem allegedly asked his man merchant to kill the audio king taurani and 17 others were however were acquitted because the conspiracy charges were not proved salem is yet to face trial as he was extradited from portugal after the trial court gave its verdict