NEW DELHI, 8 April 2008 — The Supreme Court yesterday stayed the death sentences on Mohammed Mushtaq Moosa Tarani and Asgar Yusuf Mukadam, two co-accused in 1993 Mumbai serial blast case. The death sentences were pronounced by an anti-terror court.
The Supreme Court issued notices to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the convicts’ appeal against their conviction and sentences in the case. Notices were also issued on bail applications of Suleman Mohd Kasim Ghavate, Bashir Ahmed Usmani Gani, Dawood alias Dawood Taklya and Farz Ahmed Khan.
The court issued notices after hearing counsel for the petitioners who argued that the Mumbai TADA, or Terrorist and Disruptive Activities, court had committed a serious error by not appreciating the evidence in the “correct perspective” and their “conviction and sentences were liable to be set aside.”
Tarani was given death sentence for parking an explosives-laden scooter in Shaikh Memon Street that did not explode. He had also planted a bomb at Hotel Centaur, though the explosion did not cause any casualties.
Mukadam was given the death penalty for parking an explosives-laden Maruti van outside Plaza Cinema in Mumbai. The explosion killed 10 people and injured 36.
The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the capital punishment to Zakir Hussain Noor Mohammed Sheikh, also an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blast case. The court had in its previous hearing indicated the possibility of granting bail to those who have served half of their jail sentences.
The court’s decision to stay the death sentences is understood to be linked with a reassessment of the convicts’ role in Mumbai serial blasts. While staying Sheikh’s capital punishment, the Supreme Court also admitted his plea challenging the verdict of Mumbai’s anti-terror court that convicted him of terrorism charges.
Until yesterday, five convicts on death row have managed to get their sentences stayed by appealing against their conviction in the Mumbai serial blast case. The Supreme Court suspended the death penalty of fugitive underworld don Tiger Memon’s accountant brother Yakub, on Jan. 28. He had been sentenced to death for hatching the conspiracy, funding the terror attack and supplying weapons for it.
Subsequently, on Feb. 21, the Supreme Court suspended the death sentence of Mohammed Shoaib Ghansar. He had been accused of parking an explosives-laden scooter outside the Bombay Stock Exchange, which caused blasts killing 17 people and maiming 57.
Fifteen years ago, on March 12, 1993, within a span of two hours, 13 bombs exploded in the country’s commercial capital Mumbai killing more than 250 people and injuring at least 1,400. The CBI and Mumbai police named 123 people as accused in the blast. A special TADA court was established to conduct the trials, which were held in the court of Justice J.N. Patel and later shifted to the court of Judge Pramod Kode.
Kode started delivering the verdicts last year in May. Of the 123 accused, 100 were convicted and 23 acquitted. Kode pronounced death sentences on 12.
