CBI once again seeks time in separate 93 blasts case

Mumbai, Apr 11 (UNI) Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today once again sought time till April 15 to submit the list of witnesses in the separate 1993 Mumbai serial blasts trials to try extradited gangster Abu Salem, Mustafa Dossa alias Mustafa Majnu and others.

Making a request before the designated TADA judge P D Kode, CBI officer K Parsad said the Superintendent of CBI, Raman Tiyagi was out of station, therefore, the list asked by the court could not be ready.

He expressed his inability to submit the same today and sought time.

Following this, the court adjourned further hearing and deferred the trials.

After CBI submits the list of the witnesses, the court will fix dates for the commencement of two separate trials.

Notably, after convicting 100 accused in the first phase of trials in the 1993 blasts case, the court had ordered separate trials for Dossa, Salem and his two accomplices, Riyaz Siddiqui and Abdul Qauum Ansari. Among the hundred, who were convicted, are members of the Memon family who had masterminded the blasts and Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt.

Salem Dossa and the two others, who are lodged in the Arthur Road jail, were arrested towards the end of the main trials.

The court had last week turned down a CBI plea to club together the trials of Salem, Dossa and the two others.

Dossa, who was deported from Dubai on March 20, 2003, is accused of actively participating in the blasts' conspiracy. He was also allegedly involved in the landing of weapons in Raigad district prior to the blasts on March 12, 1993, that had left 257 people dead and 574 injured.

Salem is accused of delivering an AK-56 rifle at Dutt's residence and various other weapons to co-accused. Siddiqui and Ansari, too, are accused of delivering weapons at different places.

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