2 get death, Abu Salem life for ’93 Mumbai blasts

Special TADA court sentences five in India’s longest terror trial

MUMBAI: A court on Thursday sentenced two men to death and two more, including gangster Abu Salem, to life in jail for the 1993 Mumbai serial bombings that killed 257 people.

A fifth convict, Riyaz Siddiqui, was given 10 years in prison.

The verdict came 24 years after the dozen blasts in India’s financial capital and nearly 80 days after they were found guilty by the Special Tada Court.

The 50-year-old Salem was spared the gallows because of an extradition treaty with Portugal, where he was hiding before being brought to India.

Salem and his former actressgirlfriend Monica Bedi were arrested by Interpol in Lisbon in 2002 and were handed to Indian agencies in November 2005.

An important clause in the Indo-Portuguese treaty for Salem’s extradition was an assurance by New Delhi that he would not be sentenced to death.

“The extradition treaty says the maximum sentence permissible to him is 25 years, since life imprisonment and death penalty are banned in Portugal,” special public prosecutor Deepak Salve said.

“The government will take a decision … whether to commute the life sentence to 25 years.”

Co-convicts Firoz Khan and Tahir Merchant were free from such constraints.

Special TADA court Judge GA Sanap sentenced them to death for the dozen explosions that wounded 713 people and destroyed property worth ₹27 crore. Karimullah Khan, a close aide of India’s most wanted man Dawood Ibrahim, was awarded life imprisonment.

Dawood had ordered the attacks to avenge the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya by a Hindu mob a year before, which triggered large-scale religious riots.

The court in June convicted six people, including fellow mastermind Mustafa Dossa and Salem.

Dossa died of a heart attack in Mumbai’s JJ Hospital a few days after his conviction.