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Dadar's Plaza theatre verdict establishes Pakistan role

Shahnawaz Qureshi, who was convicted along with Asgar Mukadam, had confessed of being taken to Pakistan via Dubai for weapons training.

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MUMBAI: A 13-year suspicion of Pakistan’s role in the 1993 bomb blasts was confirmed on Monday when the TADA court held Shahnawaz Qureshi, who planted a bomb at Dadar’s Plaza cinema, guilty of the conspiracy as well as of undergoing weapons training in Pakistan.
 
Judge PD Kode convicted Qureshi (48) and Asgar Mukadam (45), manager of prime accused Ibrahim Mushtaq ‘Tiger’ Memon, of leaving a red Maruti van loaded with RDX at the cinema’s parking lot on March 12, 1993. The bomb went off at 3:15pm, minutes after the afternoon show of the Raaj Kumar-Nana Patekar-starrer Tirangaa began, killing 10 persons, injuring 37, and damaging property worth Rs87 lakh.
 
Judge Kode upheld the confessions of both the men as “true and voluntary” despite their retraction. Qureshi, an illiterate butcher at the Deonar abattoir, had confessed to his role and of being taken to Pakistan via Dubai for weapons training.
 
According to public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, Qureshi’s passport showed that he had visited Dubai in February 1993. During the visit, he went out of the emirate for 14 days. While the passport confirmed that he had left Dubai and returned, it did not reflect where he had gone in that period.
 
Qureshi’s confession that he was taken to Pakistan and given arms training was confirmed by one of the two approvers in the case, who, when outlining the way the conspiracy was planned, said 19 persons were taken to Pakistan to be trained in handling weapons and explosives.
 
“The undeclared entry and exit from Pakistan could not have been possible without the active support of immigration authorities at Islamabad airport,” Nikam told DNA. This is the first judicial finding of the accused undergoing training in Pakistan, he said.
 
Two eyewitnesses had identified Qureshi and Mukadam as the men who parked the vehicle at Plaza.
 
While Qureshi was acquitted of the charges of participating in conspiratorial meetings in Mumbai and filling RDX in vehicles, he was held guilty of landing explosives at Shekhadi in Raigad district and 11 other charges.
 
Mukadam, the first person to be arrested in the case (March 18, 1993) was convicted on 14 counts, including abetting the planting of explosives at Sea Rock Hotel in Bandra and the Centaur hotels at the airport and Juhu. Both face life imprisonment at the very least.
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