There has been no split in the D-company and underworld don and global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim is funding all legal expenses of his companion in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, Abu Salem, presently lodged in jail in Portugal.

The underworld was agog with rumours after Salem's arrest in Lisbon two years back that there was a vertical split in
the D-company and that Dawood Ibrahim was after Salem's life for "betrayal", CBI sources said.

The CBI had also started believing the rumours as Salem, during his extradition trial in Portugal, had pleaded that he
wanted to hide himself in Lisbon because of the fear of Dawood Ibrahim, who was recently declared "global terrorist" by the US State Department.

However, according to intensive interrogation of some of the underworld people, who have been deported from Dubai, CBI
officials came in for a surprise when one such detenue, who was in close periphery of Dawood Ibrahim, told the investigating agency that the split between Dawood and Salem was stage-managed to divert police attention.

The deported D-company man revealed to the CBI that the entire legal funding of Salem in Portugal was being done by
Dawood Ibrahim, the sources said.

Both Dawood and Salem are wanted by the CBI in connection with the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts which left 257 people dead
and damaged property worth Rs 30 crore.

The sources quoting the interrogation report said Salem, who controlled the extortion wing in the D-company, had been
deputed by Dawood Ibrahim to Portugal to set up a base there in view of repeated fights between Salem and Chota Shakeel.

Both -- Shakeel, who is overlooking all operations of Dawood in India, and Salem -- were close aides of Dawood who
had separated them as he did not want to lose either of them, the sources said.

They said Dawood was funding all legal expenses of Salem as he was the key man in the D-company and his extradition to
India could serve a severe blow to Dawood and could expose his Pakistani links and other mysteries surrounding the D-company.

Salem has been facing extradition trial to India and is currently serving four-and-a-half-year imprisonment in Lisbon
for entering Portugal on forged documents.

India has sought his extradition in seven cases, including the Mumbai serial blasts.