1993 Mumbai blasts: 6 convicted; 1 acquitted

By Shuriah Niazi

NEW DELHI, India (AA) - A court in the western Indian state of Maharashtra on Friday convicted six people of conspiring and carrying out a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993 that killed 257 people.

The Terrorist And Disruptive Activities (Prevention) (TADA) Act court in Mumbai has convicted Abu Salem, Mustafa Dossa, Firoz Khan, Karimullah Sheikh, Tahir Merchant and Riyaz Siddiqui. Abdul Qayyum was acquitted.

Abu Salem was extradited from Portugal in 2005 and was charged with supplying the arms and ammunition for the blasts.

The court acquitted all seven of the charge of waging war against the nation.

A hundred people were convicted and 23 were acquitted in the first leg of the trial of the Mumbai blast case, which concluded in 2007. The trial of these seven accused was held separately, as they were in hiding during the commencement of the earlier trial, which began in 1995.

The next hearing in the case has been fixed for June 19, when the court will announce sentences.

A series of 12 blasts rocked the country’s commercial capital Mumbai on March 12, 1993, killing 257 people and injuring more than 700 people.