Accused have had a protracted spell in jail & this will be set off.
Mumbai : After more than a decade in the dock, three of the ten accused, who were recently convicted in the Mumbai triple blast case, have been awarded lifetime imprisonment by the special POTA court. The court has also handed out 10 years RI to four other accused and two years each to the remaining three. The triple blasts, which shook the nation’s financial capital between December 2002 and March 2003, had killed 12 people.
Rohini Salian, the prosecutor in the case, said that all the convicted accused have undergone eight years of imprisonment during the period of trial and so the accused who have been awarded ten years imprisonment will now undergo only two years in jail. She also said that the three accused who have been given two years jail will be out in a few days after the formalities are complete.
Sources also said that the three accused — to whom the court has awarded three years of jail — are eligible to demand compensation from the government as they have already undergone more than two years of imprisonment during the decade long trial.
The special judge P R Deshmukh announced life term till death to Muzammil Ansari who is the main accused in the case: he was found guilty on 18 counts of POTA and the Illegal Arms and the Explosive Substances Act. The court has also imposed a fine of Rs one lakh on Muzammil.
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Following is the chronology of events that took place during and after the Mumbai triple blasts in 2002 and 2003.
1. The first blast took place on December 6, 2002 at a market place in suburban Mumbai, Vile Parle.
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The judge Deshmukh said, “I could have given death penalty to accused number 11 (Muzammil) but he would die within a fraction of a second. I want him to instead feel the pain of the people who were killed in the blasts and so he is getting life till death.” Along with Muzammil, Farhan Khot and Wahid Ansari have also been given lifetime imprisonment and told to cough up a fine of Rs one lakh each.
Salian said that it is for the government and the jailor to decide whether Farhan and Wahid can be let out before completion of their life term. Meanwhile, Gulzar Azmi, the legal secretary of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, Maharashtra unit, which provided legal aid to the accused, has voiced relief at the court’s verdict on Muzammil since the prosecution had urged the court to award him death penalty. He said that the verdict of the special POTA court would be challenged in the Bombay High Court.
