A special Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) court on Tuesday convicted 10 out of 13 accused — most of whom owe allegiance to the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) — for their involvement in the three blasts that took place in the metropolis between December 6, 2002 and March 13, 2003, in which 13 people were killed and 132 others injured.
Additional Sessions Judge PR Deshmukh, who presides over a special court set up under now repealed POTA, acquitted three of the three charge-sheeted accused in the blasts for lack of sufficient evidence.
Among the accused convicted in connection with three blasts that had rocked the metropolis over a period of three months between December 2002 and March 2003 were: Saquib Nachan, former general secretary of the outlawed SIMI, Muzammil Ansari, an engineer, and Dr Anwar Ali, a professor who taught Urdu at National Defence Academy in Pune. Nachan was the head of the SIMI module that masterminded the triple blasts.
The Judge will pronounce quantum of sentences on the ten convicted people on Wednesday. The sentences to be pronounced are likely to range from a minimum of three years to capital punishment.
The blasts were engineered by the SIMI and the reasons cited by the outlawed students’ outfit for engineering the explosions were to avenge the December 6, 1992 Babri Masjid demolition at Ayodhya and the killing of Muslims in 2002 Gujarat riots.
Apart from Nachan, Muzammil Ansari and Dr Ali, the seven other accused convicted in the three cases were: Atif Nasir Mulla, Hasib Zuber Mullah, Ghulam Akbar Abdul Sattar Khotal, Mohammed Kamil, Noor Mohammed Abdul Malik Ansari alias Imam alias Sikandar, Farhan Abdul Malik Khot and Dr Wahid Abdul Jabbar Ansari.
The three accused who were acquitted for want of evidence were Adnan Mulla, Harroon lohar and Nadeem Paloba.
Given that a majority of the accused in three blasts were linked to the SIMI and that many of them had a role to play in all the blasts, the POTA court clubbed the triple blasts together and tried the accused in them.
In the first blast that took place near McDonald’s eatery in Mumbai Central Railway Terminus on December 6, 2002, 22 people were injured, while 30 people were injured in an explosion that rocked a crowded place near Vile Parle railway station in north-west Mumbai. In the third blast that took place on board a first class ladies’ compartment of a suburban train at Mulund in north-east Mumbai, 13 persons were killed and 80 others injured.
Some of the accused have either died or been some killed during encounters with police.
While the Crime Branch-CID of Mumbai Police investigated the cases initially, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) took over the investigations into the three cases subsequently.
The prime accused were charged with offences like waging a war against the nation, criminal conspiracy under the IPC and on several charges under the Arms Act, Explosive Substances Act, and POTA.
Of the accused, seven accused confessed to their crime. In all, 150 witnesses were examined in the case.