The designated TADA court on Friday issued non-bailable warrants against the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convicts Zaibunissa Kazi and Sharif Parkar, after they failed to surrender before it to serve their remaining jail terms.
Appearing on behalf of the 70-year-old Zaibunissa and 80-year-old Parkar in the designated TADA court, senior lawyer Farhana Shah said that her clients could not surrender before the court as per the deadline set by the Supreme Court, owing to medical reasons.
Shah informed the court that while Zaibunissa was undergoing medical treatment for her kidney ailment, Parkar had been admitted to a city hospital where he was due to undergo angioplasty for his cardiac ailment.
However, Additional Sessions Judge GA Sanap, who presides over the designated TADA court here, rejected Shah’s plea that her two clients be given some more time to surrender, saying that as per the last month’s Supreme Court, it was mandatory on the part of Zaibunissa and Parkar to surrender before the court on Friday.
The judge ordered that non-bailable warrants be issued against Zaibunissa and Parkar for their failure to surrender before the court.
While Zaibunissa has been convicted for five years, Parkar’s earlier sentence of 14 years has been enhanced to life term by the Supreme Court.
When contacted, Shah told The Pioneer in the evening: “While Zaibunissa will in all likelihood surrender before the court on Monday, I am not sure as to when Parkar will hand himself over to the authorities. Parkar has been advised by doctors to undergo angioplasty in a city hospital. In Parkar’s case, doctors will take a call as to when he will be in a position to surrender”.
On Thursday, celebrity actor Sanjay Dutt, also convicted in the Mumbai blasts case surrendered at a special court in Mumbai and returned to jail. He has already spent part of his five-year-sentence and has to serve 42 months more.
Zaibunissa Kazi, 70, is one of the main accused in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case and was convicted under the TADA Act.
It has been alleged that she was hoarding illegal AK-56 rifles, bullets and hand grenades in her house. These weapons were allegedly brought to her by Abu Salem and Manzoor Ahmed Sayed Ahmed and were used in the blasts.
A widower who raised five daughters, she was convicted by a special Mumbai terrorist court and was held guilty of aiding and abetting terrorist acts. Kazi was sentenced to a five-year jail term.
She has repeatedly claimed innocence and has appealed for mercy, recently to the Governor of Maharashtra citing her failing health as the reason. A cancer patient, she recently underwent a kidney operation.
Her daughter Shagufta claimed that Zaibunissa knew Abu Salem as a real estate agent. “There was no recovery from our house of any weapon. We have suffered enough,” she said.
Kazi, who has spent eight months of her five year term in jail, is presently out on bail and the Supreme Court had given her a 4 week extension to surrender.