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10 to hang for Mumbai blasts
24/07/2007 14:32 - (SA)
Mumbai - Three men who threw hand grenades as part of a series of bombings that killed 257 people in Mumbai in 1993 were sentenced to death on Tuesday, bringing the number of those condemned to hang to 10.
Justice Pramod Kode handed death sentences to Firoze Mallik, Abdul Akhtar and Zakir Hussain and a life term to Moin Qureshi for lobbing hand grenades into a fishermen's colony in suburban Mumbai, killing three and injuring six.
The grenade attack was part of a larger string of bombings that shook India's financial capital on March 12, 1993, when bombs packed into cars and scooters targeted the country's main stock exchange, a national airline building, the passport office, busy markets, a petrol pump and hotels.
Kode said it was not important whether the grenades each man threw actually resulted in taking a life since the men were aware they were committing a terrorist act.
However, he gave Qureshi a life sentence because he was 17 years-old - a minor - during the attack.
"It is immaterial with whose blow innocent people died," said Kode. "They are all guilty. Evidence shows each threw grenades, each of them knew they were committing a terrorist act."
So far 91 people have been sentenced in the case in which more than 100 people were convicted for involvement in the plot, thought to be an act of revenge for the demolition of a 16th century mosque by Hindu nationalists in northern India in 1992. After the demolition, religious riots erupted between December 1992 and January 1993, leaving more than 800 dead, most of them Muslims.
- AP
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