Sanjay Dutt gets added reprieve from TADA court

Mumbai, Oct 20: Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, who has been convicted in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case and is currently on bail, got further reprieve as the designated TADA court did not hand him over the copy of the judgment today. Sanjay Dutt's bail will, therefore, continue till he receives the copy of the judgment.

The court commenced the process of handing over copies of the judgment from today and those who have been awarded death sentences and life imprisonment in the case, were handed over the copies.

All of them--presently in custody-- were brought to the court from the Yerawada jail in Pune.

Designated TADA court judge P D Kode handed over the first copy of the judgment, running into 4,340 pages and having 6,236 paragraphs, to Mohammed Shoib Ghansar who has been awarded the death sentence by the court. He was involved in parking an RDX-laden scooter at Zaveri Bazar in South Mumbai, resulting in an explosion that killed 27 people and injured 57.

Apart from Ghansar, the copies of the judgment were presented to Asgar Muqadam, Shahnawaz Qureshi, Abdul Akhtar Khan, Firoze Malik, Mushtaq Tarani, Farooq Pawle, Zakir Hussain and Abdul Gani Turk-- all of whom have been awarded the death sentence.

The copies of the judgment were also given to the three other convicts, who have been awarded life imprisonment. They were Nasim Barmare, Bashir Khairullah and Salim Rahim Shaikh.

Meanwhile, the court has summoned Sanjay Dutt on October 22 when he is likely to receive the copy of the judgment. The judge has summoned members of the Memon family, who masterminded the blasts, on October 23 to receive their copies.

Each copy of the judgment weighs around 23 kilograms and were handed over to the convicts in boxes. All the convicts, who received the copies today, later gave the same to their relatives.

UNI