The Bombay high court on Friday upheld the death penalty awarded by a trial court to three people in cases of blasts carried out in the city between 2002 and 2003.
The Bombay high court on Friday upheld the death penalty awarded by a trial court to three people in cases of blasts carried out in the city between 2002 and 2003. One of them is a woman belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The court also asked two accused discharged earlier to appear before the trial court, where they will face a fresh case.
A division bench of justices AM Khanwilkar and PD Kode, in its judgment, said, “The convicts must be dealt with sternly considering our finding that the accused had not committed the offence under influence of mental or emotional disturbance but in a well-planned manner... to destabilise the country by causing serial bomb blasts in a city like Mumbai. The acts were in retaliation to the Godhra incident.”
The court, however, has kept the sentence in abeyance for eight weeks on the defence’s request for appealing against the judgment in the Supreme Court.
The trial court had said, “The accused are blood-thirsty… there is no scope for reformation. The blasts had shaken the collective conscience of the society, (which) will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offenders.”
Sayyed Mohammed Hanif, 50, Fehmida Sayyed, 47, and Ashrat Ansari, 36, appeared before the high court through video-conferencing.
Additional public prosecutors Poornima Kantharia and Jayesh Yagnik said, “We are glad the high court has confirmed the sentence and appreciated the evidence gathered by the police and put forth by the prosecution to nail the culprits.” Advocate Sushan Kunjuraman, appearing for Ansari, said “We will appeal against the judgment in the apex court. I am confident that we will get a reversal of the order there.”
According to the prosecution, the three convicts, including the two discharged accused, made a plan and carried out various blasts in the city. Their first attempt was on December 2, 2002, which the police foiled after defusing the explosives kept in a BEST bus at Seepz. The second was on June 28, 2003, which was successful when an explosion took place in a BEST bus outside Ghatkopar station. And the third was the big one — twin blasts on August 25, 2003, outside the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar.
The accused were arrested based on the statement of a taxi driver whose vehicle was used in the blasts. Hanif made Sayyed hire the taxi on the pretext of holidaying in the city.
Mohammed Ansari alias Usman Ladoowala and Mohammed Ansar Shaikh alias Hasan Batterywala, who were discharged after the POTA Review Committee gave them a clean chit in 2005, have been directed to appear before the special POTA court. The high court said, “They will be tried for POTA charges 4 (a) (possession of arms) and other offences under the Indian Penal Code.”
Advocate Sharif Sheikh, appearing for the two, said “We will appeal in the apex court.”
BOX
As per Hanif and Ansari’s confession, the blasts were in retaliation of the Gujarat carnage
Their statement said they were blinded by their Pakistani friends who kept showing them CDs of atrocities committed against Muslims in Gujarat
The trial court had discharged minor daughter of Hanif and Sayyed, who was arrested in the case as a conspirator and planter
Another accused, Nasir Ahmed, was shot in an encounter near Matunga a fortnight after the twin blasts
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