Twenty years after serial bomb blasts killed 257 people in Mumbai on March 12, 1993, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence awarded to Yakub Memon, brother of fugitive gangster Tiger Memon, and upheld the conviction of filmstar Sanjay Dutt for the illegal possession of arms. This means the actor will have to spend three and a half years behind bars. The Supreme Court bench reduced to five years the six-year jail term awarded to him by a Tada court under the Arms Act. But Dutt, 53, has already spent 18 months in jail. The actor has been ordered to surrender within four weeks.
The top court bench, comprising Justices P. Sathasivam and B.S. Chauhan, held that Dawood Ibrahim, along with the Memon brothers, had masterminded the blasts with the connivance of Pakistan and the ISI. Memon is the only convict whose death sentence was upheld; the apex court commuted to life imprisonment the capital punishment awarded to 10 others and upheld the life terms awarded to 16 of 18 convicts.
On Sanjay Dutt, the Supreme Court said, “The circumstances and the nature of the offence are so serious that we are of the view he (Sanjay Dutt) cannot take the benefit of provisions of the Probation of Offenders Act to release him on probation. We reduce the punishment of six years to (the) minimum of five years under the Arms Act.”
Dutt was convicted by the Tada court for illegal possession of a 9 mm pistol and an AK-56 rifle that was part of the consignment of weapons and explosives brought to India for the 13 serial blasts that killed 257 people and injured over 700 others. The court concurred with the trial court’s conclusion, saying it had adopted the “correct procedure” while sentencing Dutt. “We are in agreement with the conclusion arrived at by the Tada court that rejected the arguments of appellant Sanjay Dutt... We are of the view the trial court adopted the correct procedure and the decision arrived at by it was correct,” the bench said.
According to the CBI, RDX smuggled in from Pakistan in boats landed on the Dighy and Shekhadi coasts in Raigad district in January and February 1993. Weapons had also been landed and were collected by affiliates of Tiger Memon. Bollywood filmmakers Samir Hingora and Hanif Kadawala had supplied AK-56 rifles, magazines, cartridges and hand grenades, which were part of the illegal consignment to be used in the blasts, at Dutt’s Pali Hill residence. The court modified the nine-year jail term awarded by the Tada court to Hingora to six and a half years, which he has already spent behind bars. Kadawala was shot dead in February 2001 by two unidentified men during the trial of the case.
The court also upheld the conviction and five-year sentence of Yusuf Mohsin Nulwalla, a close friend of Dutt who was held guilty of destroying weapons kept at Dutt’s home. The two-year jail term for Kersi Bapuji Adjania, who was also sentenced for destroying weapons in Dutt’s possession, was upheld. According to the CBI, Nulwalla had picked up the weapons from Dutt’s house, taken them to Adjania and destroyed them.
The court, however, dismissed the Maharashtra government’s appeal against the acquittal of Ajai Yash Prakash Marwah, who was charged with keeping the pistol recovered from Dutt’s residence while other weapons were destroyed by convicts Nulwalla and Hingora.