6 convicted, 1 freed but none held guilty of waging war against state
1993 MUMBAI BLASTS CASE Special TADA court acquits one. Sentencing to happen at a later date
Twenty-four years after 257 people died in a terror strike and five years after a lengthy judicial battle, a special TADA court on Friday convicted six of the seven accused in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case under charges ranging from terrorism, murder, criminal conspiracy and several others. However, none were found guilty under the stringent ‘waging war against the state’ provision as the “prosecution had failed to prove the charges” according to the judge. The sentencing will happen at a later date.
One of the accused, Abdul Qayyum, has been acquitted of all the charges and will walk free soon.
Friday’s verdict is the second part of the judgement; the first one was delivered in 2006 by special judge Justice Pramod Kode, who had convicted 123 accused, including Yakub Memon, who was subsequently hanged, and actor Sanjay Dutt.
On Friday, the special court convicted Abu Salem, Mustafa Dossa, Feroze Khan, Tahir Merchant, Riyaz Siddiqui and Karimullah Khan. Justice G.A. Sanap, the special judge, had leafed through tens of thousands of pages of documentary evidence and examined more than 750 witnesses. All the seven accused were present in court on Friday.
“On the basis of the documentary evidence and other material before me, I conclude that the prosecution has successfully proved its case against six of the accused,” Justice Sanap said. Elaborating on the motive behind the bomb blasts, the judge added, “It can be said that the accused have wilfully and intentionally participated in and executed the conspiracy designed to teach Hindus a lesson. This conspiracy was hatched to take revenge on the Indian government and Hindus for the atrocities meted out to the Muslim community after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the 1992 riots in Mumbai and Surat.”
The special court will begin hearing on Monday arguments of the six convicts as well as the CBI over the quantum of punishment to be given to them.
“We welcome this landmark judgement and are happy that majority of our contentions were upheld. We would now ask for maximum punishment for all the convicts,” Deepak Salvi, the public prosecutor in this case, said.
Harun Merchant, brother of Mustafa Dossa, said the family would discuss the matter with their counsel Rizwan Merchant and then decide on the next legal course.
However, the verdict was also a setback for the CBI as the stringent TADA provision of “waging war against the state” was struck down by the court.
The Special TADA court has upheld CBI’s contention that all six convicts, including Abu Salem, had “conspired to teach a lesson to Hindus and government as revenge for the demolition of Babri Masjid and the riots thereafter in Surat and Mumbai”.
Salem, known gangster of fugitive the Dawood Ibrahim gang, and other convicts had “wilfully and intentionally executed the crime to harm the Hindu community”, the court noted.
Special judge Justice G. A. Sanap also upheld the contention of the prosecution that Salem was instrumental in distributing the arms, ammunitions and explosives to various people, including actor and accused Sanjay Dutt. Salem distributed the explosives and arms to Salim Kurla and Babu Chavan to create riots in various parts of Mumbai and Surat.
“On instructions of Anees Kaskar, brother of Dawood Ibrahim, Salem had distributed three AK 56 rifles, magazines, ammunition and hand grenades to accused Sanjay Dutt and Ibrahim Chavan alias Babu Chavan. Salem went back to Dutt’s house and brought back two AK 56 rifles, hand grenades which were given to other accused Baba Chavan and Salim Kurla to create riots in Behram pada and other areas,” Justice Sanap added.
Sanap observed that given Salem’s close proximity to Anees, “he took upon himself the responsibility to distribute all the weapons across the city of Mumbai”. He added, “This crucial part was important to execute the plan to kill innocent Hindus.”
Salem has been convicted for murder, attempt to murder, conspiring to execute a terrorist act, concealing a terrorist and facilitating a terrorist to execute a destructive act. He is also charged with being a member of a terrorist organisation. Apart from this, he is charged with possessing arms, destruction of public property among others.
Salem has a slight advantage since India had signed a treaty with Portugal and has to send him back there.
As per the treaty, Salem can be jailed for only 25 years and Indian authorities will have to deport him to Portugal.