Mahim blast accused in court on Monday

The verdict of the six remaining accused charged for lobbing hand grenades at the Mahim Machchimar colony on March 12, 1993, will be pronounced by the Tada court on Monday, bringing the first phase of the judgement to an end.

Of the 123 accused, 94 have been convicted so far and 23 acquitted. The second phase will involve arguments by the defence and prosecution on the quantum of punishment for the accused. The arguments are likely to go on for a couple of weeks. The third phase, wherein the sentence of each accused held guilty will be declared, is likely to start in January 2007.

The six accused in the Mahim bombing include Bashir Ahmed Khairullah, Mohammed Moin Qureshi, Zakir Hussain Shaikh, Abdul Khan Akhtar, Firoze Amani Malik, and Salim Rahim Shaikh. Armed with pistols and grenades, they had driven to the Machchimar colony at around 1.45 pm in a Maruti Van and thrown the grenades killing three persons and injuring six.