Memon brothers' bail plea deferred to September 20

Mumbai, Sep 18 (UNI) The designated TADA court here today deferred till September 20, the hearing of the bail plea filed by the three Memon brothers, found guilty in the 1993 serial bomb blasts case.

Judge P D Kode deferred the matter after the defence sought time to argue.

The trio -- Yakub, Essa and Yusuf, brother of prime absconding accused Tiger Memon, -- had earlier moved a bail application on medical grounds even before they were held guilty by the TADA court on September 12.

Yakub Memon, a chartered accountant, had moved for bail on the grounds that he is in a state of depression and needed psychiatric treatment, which is not possible in the jail premises. Yusuf contended that he was suffering from schizophrenia and Essa said he was suffering from brain tumour.

Earlier, the prosecution had sought death penalty for the three brothers and life imprisonment for their sister-in-law Rubina Memon.

The court had earlier granted interim bail to Rubina Memon on humanitarian grounds as she was the mother of two minor children and also had to take care of her ailing mother-in-law Hanifa Memon, who was earlier discharged from the case for lack of sufficient evidence.

In a related development, Memon family's counsel Harshad Ponda today once again pleaded for lesser punishment for them and opposed the prosecution's appeal for capital punishment and life imprisonment.

While replying to the prosecution's submission, Adv Ponda said that the prosecution had cited various apex Court orders like the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. In most of these cases, the Supreme court had awarded capital punishment on the accused, who were deeply involved in the conspiracy but awarded lesser punishment to those who were not directly involved in the case and conspiracy, he argued.

He said in the present case, his clients were not deeply involved in the conspiracy nor were they directly linked in the conspiracy that was hatched after the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya in December 1992.

The arguements on the quantum of punishment awarded to the Memon family will continue tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the court will also record the statements of two blast accused, Asgar Mukadam and Shahnawaz Qureishi, who were found guilty by the TADA court today for their involvement in the blast.

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