Court finds five guilty of arms training in Pakistan

Mumbai, Sep 29 (UNI) A TADA court today found five accused guilty of conspiracy in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts and receiving training in the handling of arms and explosives in a camp in Pakistan.

Those pronounced guilty under section 120-B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 3 (3) of TADA (P) (aiding and abetting terrorist acts) by judge Pramod Kode are Gul Mohammed Shaikh, Mohammed Hanif Shaikh, Mohammed Sayyed, Ibrahim Hussain Shaikh , and Usman Khan.

Following their conviction, they were taken into custody and their bail bonds were cancelled.

With this, so far 25 accused have been convicted and 11 discharged out of 123 who faced eight-year-long trial in India's worst terror attack that killed 257 people and wounded over 700.

CBI, the prosecuting agency, said the acccused remained in Dubai and Pakistan from January 22 to March 3 in 1993. Besides attending conspiracy meetings, they underwent the training organised in Pakistan by prime accused Tiger Memon, who is abconding, and others.

The court accepted their confessional statements, though retracted during trial, on the basis of the corroborative evidence and other materials produced by the prosecution. Mr Kode observed that although the accused were not part of the inner circle of the conspiracy, their consent to go to Pakistan and participation in training camps indicated their active involvement. He, however, added he would take into consideration the extent of their participation in the conspiracy while deteriming their sentence.

Reacting to the conviction, the defence team lead by Farhana Shah said though it is proved that the accused had undergone training in the handling of arms and exploisves in Pakistan but the prosecution failed to prove that the accused made use of the training.

Gul, the first among the five to be declared guilty today, bent his head and broke down while returning his security pass to the court.

All accused on bail are given security passes to enter the court room.

Usman, after hearing convictions of four co-accused, submitted to the court to declare him guilty. But when the judge asked him to first get into the witness box before he pronounced his order, he reluctantly entered. When declared guilty, Usman smiled and Mr Kode pointed this out to defence lawyers.

Ibrahim's plea to make a statement after he was pronounced guilty was turned down by Mr Kode who said he could make it when he has to record statement on the quantum of sentence.

All five convicted today would record statements on quantum of punishment on October 3.

UNI XR SA VD RK1830