One guilty, one acquitted in 1993 serial blasts

Mumbai, Nov 14: A TADA court here today found one accused guilty and acquitted another for their involvement in the 1993 serial bomb blasts in the metropolis.

TADA Judge P D Kode found accused number 122, Ehsan Quereshi guilty of possessing one Mauser pistol and 16 rounds in the notified area of Mumbai. He was found guilty under section 5 of TADA and section three, seven and 25 of the Arms Act.

The court observed that the accused was unauthorisedly possessing the arms given to him by co-accused Firoz Malik, which were a part of a consignment smuggled in the country for committing the serial blasts.

The court has also accepted the recovery panchanama made by the police, indicating the recovery of arms at the instance of the accused from the Mahim Creek in Mumbai.

The court had also accepted Quereshi's and the co-accused's confessional statements describing the crime committed by him. The court also took the police statment on record and accepted that the arms were purchased by Quereshi at Rs 50,000. However, he paid only Rs 5,000 as advance to Malik.

The court, however, did not find accused no 76 Fazal Khan guilty in the case. The court said that police had not recorded any confessional statment nor he was properly named by the co-accused in the case, and acquitted him for lack of evidence.

Khan was facing charges under section 3(3) of TADA and under sections three, seven and 25 of Arms Act. The charges against him included trying to pursuade co-accused Malik for sending him to Pakistan for receiving training in handling arms and ammunition. He was also found in possession of four hand grenades, which were afterwards handed over to another blast accused Mohammad Jabir, who was later killed in an encounter at Santacruz in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, the court has postponed pronouncing its verdict about accused no 20 Ahmed Shah alias Salim Durrani and Aziz Shaikh, till tomorrow. Shah had made an application in the court that he wanted to take his wife to a specialist for treatment of her eye. Pleading he hailed from Rajasthan and no other family member was in the city to take care of his wife, he had produced a medical certificates before the court. Upon this, the court had allowed his plea and adjoured pronoucing his verdict along with Shaikh who is involved in the same case till tomorrow. They are on bail and were directed to come tomorrow when the court will decide their fate.

Durrani, a science graduate and hailing from a royal family of Tonk in Rajasthan, is facing charge for concealing and harbouring the arms which were smuggled into the country for committing the terrorist act. A close associate of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, Shah had attended the meeting at Dubai where the conspiracy was hatched and also arranged for finance for the transporation of four accused persons who went to Pakistan for arms handling training there. He is charged under section 2, 3(3), 3(4), 5, 6 of TADA Act and also under the various sections of Arms Act and under section 120-B (Criminal Conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code (IPC). However, Shaikh is also facing similar charges for attending the meeting at Dubai, harbouring and concealing the smuggled arms and also for arranging money for sending the blast accused to Pakistan for arms handling training.

Shaikh had earlier contested the Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh and lost to Phoolan Devi.

Amidst high security, the court, while convicting accused Quershi, also cancelled his bail and ordered he be taken into custody.

UNI

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