The country could witness another round of intense political debate as a special TADA court in Mumbai is likely to give its verdict in the second leg of the trial in the 1993 serial blasts case which involved seven, including Abu Salem, an extradited gangster.
In what was the biggest terror attack in India till 26/11, the serial blasts killed 257 people and left over 710. Property worth Rs 27 crore was destroyed in the blasts. The case has spanned over two-and-half decades and there have been delays, convictions and an execution – that of Yakub Memon.
A major verdict in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case came in 2007 when as many as 100 people were convicted and 23 acquitted. Twelve people were sentenced to death though only Memon was hanged, in July 2015.
The seven accused, whose fates will be decided in the second trial, were put on a separate trial as they were arrested when the main trial concluded. The seven are, besides Salem, Mustafa Dossa, Firoz Abdul Rashid Khan, Karimullah Khan, Riyaz Siddiqui, Abdul Quayyum and Tahir Merchant.
The Salem story: In brief
Salem was accused of transporting weapons from Gujarat to Mumbai. He also gave weapons including AK56 rifles, bullets and hand grenades to Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt at his house in January 1993. A couple of days after, Salem and two others had gone to Dutt's residence to bring some weapons and ammunitions back.
In 2013, certain charges against Salem were dropped after the Central Board of Investigation moved a plea saying those charges were not in tune with the extradition treaty between India and Portugal where Salem had taken shelter by using a fake passport from Lucknow.
Salem and his actor girlfriend Monica Bedi were arrested by the Interpol in Lisbon in 2002 after being tracked through the satellite-tracking device on his phone. In September 2002, there was a tug of war between India and Portugal over Salem's extradition. The man was also charged with the murders of other renowned people and attempting murders of two Bollywood personalities.
Salem was taken to a 90-day judicial custody and there was much speculation on whether India could get a hold of him since there was no formal extradition treaty between New Delhi and Lisbon. However, Salem was eventually handed over to India in November 2005. In 2012, Portugal said it would not want to take Salem back and India subsequently told the European country that it would treat the case in compliance with the latter's judicial norms.
Controversy over sending Salem to 25 years in jail for murdering builder
In February 2015, Salem was given a jail sentence of 25 years for the murder of Pradeep Jain, a Mumbai-based builder, in 1995. The man had spent nine years in jail at that time following his extradition from Portugal. As per the extradition agreement, the gangster cannot be given a jail term for more than 25 years or a death sentence. So, the verdict earned a lot of protests from Salem's lawyers who said he could be jailed for 16 years at the most. A former aide to underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, Salem's name is involved in as many as 52 criminal cases.
