Salim accepts guilt quietly

Mumbai, Dec 4 (UNI) Unlike Yakub Memon, the first to be convicted in the 1993 serial bomb blasts case, Salim Sheikh, the last to be found guilty today, did not create ruckus in the TADA court and quietly went to the dock and sat among other convicts when pronounced guilty by Judge Pramod Kode.

When declared guilty on September 12 - the day the court started delivering verdict in instalments - Yakub caused commotion in the court room, alleging he had been rightly advised by '' Bhai '' (prime absconding accused and brother Tiger Memon) not to ''surrender''.

But police said Yakub was arrested from along the Indo-Nepal border in 1994, about a year after the multiple blasts rocked the metropolis on March 12, 1993, claiming lives of 257 people and wounding 713 others.

Salim was arrested in April, 1993.

Residents of Mahim in the city, both Yakub and Salim had undergone psychiatric treatment in the government-run J J Hospital during the course of the trial which lasted for over eight years from 1995 to 2003.

UNI XR SA MSJ RS2057