2003 Mumbai blasts accused get death sentence.
Almost 6 years have passed after the infamous Zaveri bazaar and Gateway
of India blasts. More than fifty innocent people died, and more than two hundred injured in those bomb blasts. The incident that happened was not an accident; it was well planned and was meant to kill innocent people.
The
POTA Court has given its
judgment on 6 August after thorough trial, in which Ujjawal Nikam was the public prosecutor. The court found the accused guilty last week and postponed the judgment until 6 August.
Three main accused Ashrat Ansari (32), Hanif Sayed (46), and his wife Fehmida Sayed have been found guilty, and was sentenced to death by the special POTA court judge M R Prunnik. They were booked for conspiracy and murder under the provision of Prevention of Terrorism Act. Zahid Patni, another accused arrested became approver, who disclosed the fact of L-e-T’s involvement by formulating the plan in Dubai. Nikam interrogated 103 witnesses along with the defense lawyer.
After the judgment was pronounced, Hanif Sayed appealed to the judge for mercy. His lawyer stated that Hanif is ready to spend his whole life in the prison without appealing for parole ever, provided the death sentence is curtailed. To make his client’s mercy acceptable, he cited the incident, where the Supreme Court commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment on the condition of no claim of premature release.
Through the trial it was revealed that the convicts were also associated with the unexploded bomb in a bus at Andheri on December 2002, and the bomb explosion inside a bus in Ghatkopar on 28 July 2003 killing two persons and injuring a few.