Judgement day at last!

Mumbai, May 17 (UNI) Fourteen years after a series of blasts that rocked Mumbai leaving 257 dead, the stage is set for pronouncing the sentences upon the guilty.

Judge P D Kode, who presided over the March 12, 1993 serial blasts case trials, has already held 100 accused guilty and is likely to start pronouncing the sentences from tomorrow.

Judge Kode had started delivering the judgement from September 12 last year but had not pronounced the sentences yet.

When the court commences proceedings tomorrow, five of those convicted under the Arms Act and who face lesser punishment, will be called first. They are Yeshwant Boinkar, Abbas Shaikdare, Ibrahim Shaikdare, Rashid Alware and Sharif Adhikar -- all boat owners from Raigad who had helped in transporting the explosives.

Coincidentally, it was Friday when the blasts rocked Mumbai and tomorrow is also a Friday when the judge is expected to start awarding the sentences.

On March 12, 1993 a dozen blasts rocked Mumbai in retaliation to the demolition of Babri structure on December 6, 1992. These blasts preceded the December 1992-January 1993 communal riots. The blasts had left 257 dead, 713 injured, besides damaging property worth Rs 27 crore. The blasts were engineered by fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and smuggler Tiger Memon at the behest of ISI, the Pakistani spy agency.

The process of delivering judgement commenced on September 12, 2006 and during the course of the last seven months, Judge Kode has held 100 persons guilty and acquitted 23 others. Among those held guilty are members of the Memon family, the people who planted bombs, and Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt who has been convicted under the provisions of Arms Act for possessing a 9-mm pistol and an AK-56 rifle. This was one of the biggest trials in the history of Indian judiciary.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the prosecuting agency in the serial blasts case, has demanded ''maximum punishment'' for those held guilty, but urged the court to show leniency to three women convicts on compassionate grounds and on two male convicts who suffer from life-threatening ailments.

The CBI has demanded death penalty for 44 convicts who were found guilty under section 120B of IPC (criminal conspiracy) and TADA charges, life imprisonment for 42 who were convicted under TADA, and maximum punishment for nine who were convicted under other acts like Customs Act and Arms Act.

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