Abu Salem escapes death. Gangster Abu Salem escaped the death penalty in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case as a Special TADA Court sentenced two convicts to death while awarding him 25 years jail sentence in accordance with the provisions of the extradition treaty with Portugal that bars extreme punishment for him.
Special Judge G.A. Sanap pronounced the death verdict on Mohammed Taher Merchant, 55 and Feroze Abdul Rashid Khan, 47, for their role in the blasts, said Special Public Prosecutor Deepak Salve.
Besides Salem, 50, the Special Court sent Karimullah Khan, 55, to jail for life, and fifth convict, Riyaz Siddiqui, 67, to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.
“As per the Extradition Treaty between India-Portugal, this is the maximum sentence permissible to him since the death penalty is banned in Portugal where he was first arrested,” Special Public Prosecutor Deepak Salve said after the verdict.
The judge also slapped varying amounts of fines on the convicts after finding them guilty on various charges, including murder, hatching a criminal conspiracy to carry out the blasts, waging a war against the nation, supplying arms and ammunition, and other serious offences, Salve told media persons after the ruling.
All the six accused, including Mustafa Dossa, were earlier pronounced guilty by the Special Court on June 16. However Dossa, 60, died of a heart attack on June 28.
They were convicted and sentenced under various laws including Indian Penal Code, TADA, Explosives Act, Explosive Substances Act, Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act and others.
For perpetrating their heinous acts, the conspirators acquired and smuggled deadly arms and ammunition, detonators, hand grenades and nearly three tonnes of the deadly RDX (Research & Development Explosive – or Cyclotrimethylene Trinitramine), which was used for the first time after World War II on such a scale.
However, another accused Abdul Qayyum, 64, was acquitted from the case for lack of sufficient evidence against him and later released from jail.
The much-awaited verdict on the quantum of sentencing came 24 years after the March 12, 1993 serial blasts and nearly 80 days after they were found guilty.
At least 27 other accused in the case, including dreaded mafia don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar and Tiger Memon, who mastermined the blasts, continue to elude the investigators and are declared absconders.
This was the second leg of the Mumbai blasts trial, the earlier having been completed in 2007 with the conviction of 100 accused out of 123 who were arrested and charged, including Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt and Yakub Memon, the brother of absconder Tiger Memon.
While Dutt completed his sentence in jail and walked out in February 2016, Memon was hanged on July 30, 2015.
In the first phase of what is probably the longest terror case trial in India, the then Special TADA Court Judge P. D. Kode sentenced 12 convicts to death, 20 to life terms, and other varying sentences to the remaining.
Later in March 2013, the Supreme Court had upheld the death sentence of Yakub Memon, commuted the capital punishment for 10 others to life sentences, and upheld the life imprisonment of 16 others.
On a quiet afternoon of March 12, 1993, the country’s commercial capital was shattered by a series of 13 blasts in quick succession at various locations in the city and suburbs, creating the worst unprecedented mayhem in the country, killing 257 and injuring 700 others.
The prime targets included the Air India Building, Bombay Stock Exchange, Zaveri Bazar, then existing five star hotels, Hotel SeaRock and Hotel Juhu Centaur, and others leading to damage to public and private properties worth Rs 27 crore.
As expected Abu Salem was spared the death. “As per the Extradition Treaty between India-Portugal, this is the maximum sentence permissible to him since the death penalty is banned in Portugal where he was first arrested,” Special Public Prosecutor Deepak Salve said after the verdict.
One of the important clauses in the treaty between India and Portugal for extradition of Salem was an assurance by New Delhi that he would not be sentenced to death.
Following this, Salem and his former actress girlfriend Monica Bedi – both arrested by the InterPol in Lisbon on September 20, 2002 – were finally cleared in February 2004 for extradition to India. The two were handed over to the Indian agencies in November 11, 2005.
He was wanted in India to face trial in the March 1993 blasts case which killed 257 and injured 700 plus, besides several other cases filed against him all over the country.
Nearly two years after he landed in India, the special TADA court in Mumbai filed eight charges against him and his accomplice Riyaz Siddiqui for their role in the Mumbai blasts case, including procuring the arms and ammunition from Pakistan to Gujarat and later dispatching them to Maharashtra’s Raigad.
In September 2011, after Indian authorities slapped fresh charges on Salem that could attract the death sentence, Portugal accused India of violating the extradition treaty conditions and revoked his deportation.
After the Lisbon High Court cancelled the deportation order, Portugal’s Supreme Court of Justice questioned the legal rights of the Indian authorities to challenge the cancellation of the extradition order.
In 2015, Salem had moved the Administrative Court in Portugal seeking direction to the Portuguese government to execute the order of that country’s apex court cancelling his extradition.
Inside the jails in Maharashtra, Salem barely remained out of the limelight, once when he was shot at by an inmate inside the Taloja Central Jail in Raigad on June 27, 2013, and on another occasion, when he was attacked by an inmate with a metal spoon inside the Arthur Road Central Jail, Mumbai in July 2010.
He survived both incidents with minor injuries, but left the jail authorities shaken.
There were reports that he lived a lavish lifestyle inside the jail. In 2015, a 26-year-old woman approached the special TADA court in Mumbai seeking permission to marry Salem. The two had reportedly met on a train while he was being taken to Uttar Pradesh in connection with a case.
Incidentally, shortly after Thursday’s verdict, through his lawyer, Salem moved an application before the Special TADA Court asking that he should be shifted to New Delhi as he apprehended threat to his life in Maharashtra jails.
Besides the March 1993 Mumbai blasts case, Salem has already been sentenced to life in February 2015, in the builder Pradeep Jain’s murder case of March 7, 1995 at Juhu.
The much-awaited verdict on the quantum of sentencing came 24 years after the March 12, 1993 serial blasts and nearly 80 days after they were found guilty by the Special Court.
On a quiet afternoon of March 12, 1993, the country’s commercial capital was shattered by a series of 13 blasts in quick succession at various locations in the city and suburbs, creating the worst unprecedented mayhem in the country, killing 257 and injuring 700 others.
The prime targets included the Air India Building, Bombay Stock Exchange, Zaveri Bazar, then existing five star hotels, Hotel SeaRock and Hotel Juhu Centaur, and others leading to damage to public and private properties worth Rs 27 crore. (IANS)