Dubai deported blast convict Pathan prays for less punishment

Mumbai, March 9 (UNI) Dubai deported blast convict Ejaz Pathan today appealed to the TADA court to award him less punishment as he is suffering from various ailments and has a family to look after.

Recording a statement before TADA judge P D Kode, after he was convicted by the court, Pathan said he was falsely implicated in the 1993 serial blasts case earlier he had made a wish before the Indian authorities in Dubai to surrender before a court in India an as he loves his country and wants to stay here, he added.

Referring to the charge of attending a conspiratory meeting at Dubai which was attended by prime absconding accused Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Mohammed Dosa and others, Pathan said he was invited to attend a religious ceremony called Niyaz at the residence of Mohammed Dosa. However when the participants in the meeting were discussing to hatch a plan of committing terrorist acts in India, he had backed out and protested.

An aged and sick Pathan, who was brought on a wheel-chair to the court, aso said that in 1996, while he was in Pakistan, he had told Tiger Memon that he wants to surrender before the Indian authority as his name figured in the blast case. Upon which Tiger Memon had restrained him to do so and on September 9, 1996, an attempt was made to eliminate him in Karachi, in which he had sustained bullet injuries and was admitted in Karachi hospital for nearly 21 months.

Fearing that his idea to surrender may lead to another attack on him, he had changed his mind but later to prove his innocence, he once again expressed his desire before the Indian authorities to surrender following which he was deported to India.

He told the court that he is innocent and had already undergone imprisonment for four year and one month considering his ill health, age and family background, he may be given less punishment and the period undergone by him in jail be considered as the sentence period, Pathan added.

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