93 blasts: Convict completes and signs statement

Mumbai, Oct 9: Niyaz Ahmed Sheikh, a 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts convict who had repeatedly broken down and eventually fainted in the TADA court here on October 5 while recording the statement on quantum of sentence, today again recalled days of the horror of communal riots in the city in 1992-93 and cited the sufferings of his relatives.

Sheikh, who had earlier narrated his own experience when he had to flee home which was ransacked and looted by a mob during the riots completed his statement and signed it today in the designated court of Mr Pramod Kode.

Convicted on October 3 on the charge of having received arms training in Pakistan, he again pleaded for leniency, saying he had already spent over 13 years in jail.

On Thursday, Sheikh told the court that when a riotous mob shouted that he either go to Pakistan or '' kabirstan'' (graveyard), he fled for his life , taking along his 7-year-old sister, and leaving his mother to the mercy of mob.

Sobbing and weeping frequently while recording the statement, he had stated that after he was forced to flee with his sister , they took shelter in a friend's house from where he was taken out by police three days later and a murder charge was slapped against him in connection with the killing of one Gulab during the 1992-93 riots. Subsequently, he was released by police following the intervention of some social organisations, friends and his mother.

Stating that he could not continue his studies beyond 12th class because of poverty, unmarried Sheikh, in his late thirties, pleaded for leniency, saying he had already been in custody for thirteen-and-a-half years and has the responsibility to marry off his sister and look after his mother.

Without denying his involvement in the terror crime that killed 257 people, Sheikh , however, said it was bad and he prayed to God it should not recur. '' I am an Indian ... not a terrorist ..... I have no criminal past ... I promise not to indulge in any criminal activity,'' he said.

Besides the arms-training in Pakistan, he was also found guilty of having participated in conspiracy meetings and surveying terror targets such as the Bombay Stock Exchange and Brihan-Mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and convicted under section 3(3) of Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act and section 120-B ( criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code.

UNI