A special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court here on Friday convicted underworld don Abu Salem and Dawood Ibrahim’s explosives landing agent Mustafa Dossa, alias Mustafa Majnu, and four other accused in the trial of the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, while it acquitted the seventh accused in the case, Abdul Qayoom, for lack of evidence.
More than 24 years after 257 people were killed and 713 others were injured in the serial explosions that rocked the country’s commercial capital, Special TADA Judge Govind Sanap held Salem, Dossa and four others, Karimullah Khan, Firoz Abdul Rashid Khan, Riyaz Siddiqui, Tahir Merchant alias Tahir Taklya, guilty for various grave offences.
Of the six convicted, five were found guilty of charges framed against them for criminal conspiracy (120-B), murder, attempt to murder and other sections of the Indian Penal Code, relevant provisions of the TADA, Explosives Act, Explosive Substances Act, Arms Act and Destruction of Public Property Act. However, the court convicted Siddiqui for all offences, excepting the conspiracy charge which the Prosecution failed to prove against him.
The court acquitted the seventh accused in the case, Abdul Qayoom, for lack of evidence.
All the six convicts, including Salem and Dossa, were acquitted of the grave charge of waging war against the nation.
The court will pronounce sentences on the convicts after a hearing on quantum of punishments scheduled for June 19.
Of the five convicts who have been found guilty of all charges, Salem will not be handed out capital punishment because of the extradition treaty with Portugal, under which India has agreed not to sentence him to death.
However, rest of the four convicts, including Dossa face the maximum punishment prescribed under Indian law. If they are to be sentenced to death, the Prosecution will have to prove to the court that it is a ‘rarest of rare’ case. Given that Siddiqui has been acquitted of the conspiracy charge, it remains to be seen what punishment he will get in the case.
With Friday’s conviction, the total number of accused convicted in the March 12, 1993 serial blasts case has gone up to 106. Earlier, during the main trial which was completed on December 4, 2006, then TADA court Judge PD Kode had held 100 accused guilty out of the total 123 accused, sentenced 12 of them to death and others to various periods of imprisonment.
Then a key aide of Dawood, Salem was part of the core team that hatched the conspiracy to engineer simultaneous blasts at 13 locations across Mumbai on March 12, 1993. It was he who had supplied the Kalashnikov rifle to Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt.
Mustafa Dossa, who was deported from UAE on March 20, 2003, is the younger brother of Mohammed Dossa, the absconding chief landing agent of Dawood. He was present at the first conspiracy meeting in Dubai and supervised landing of Kalashnikovs and RDX twice in the Raigad coast of Maharashra. At the Dubai meeting, Dawood, Tiger, Annes Ibrahim, Mohammed Dossa, Mustafa Dossa and Ejaz Khan were present.
Dossa also helped some of the accused go to Pakistan for training and arranged landing of RDX and AK-47 rifles along the Raigad coast in Maharashtra.
Of the remaining convicts, Tahir Taklya was the key point person of Dawood and Tiger in Dubai and it was he organised the stay of the suspects in Dubai and travel for going to Pakistan for training. He also collected funds mobilised for the blasts and distributed those involved in the blasts.