2006 Mumbai train attacks: Indian court sentences 5 Muslim men to death

Also hands down life imprisonment to seven convicts

NEW DEHLI: A special court in India on Wednesday sentenced five Muslim men to death and seven to life in prison after it found them guilty of planning and executing the 2006 bomb blasts at passenger trains in Mumbai that had killed 189 people.

The quantum of punishment was to have been decided last week when the men were found guilty of terrorist activity and mass murder. The RDX bombs were kept in pressure cookers and were placed in the trains on the western line.

Thirteen men were arrested on various charges, including transporting and planting the bombs and harbouring terrorists at their homes. One of the suspects was, however, acquitted by the court.

The police said 15 other accused, including the alleged masterminds of the plot, were still at large. In their charge-sheet, the police had also named Pakistani nationals and members of an Islamic militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Arguing against the convicts’ plea for leniency because of their background and education, the prosecutor said: “Yakub Memon was a chartered accountant with impeccable antecedents but even he was not shown mercy. Why should this case be any different?”

Yakub Memon was hanged on July 30, for his alleged role in the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, kin of the convicts in the 7/11 serial train blasts said they will approach the high court to challenge the verdict.

“There have been cases earlier, where the lower court has given death sentence and later the high court has not upheld it,” said grief-stricken Ataur Rehman, a relative of convicts Faizal and Muzammil. Mukhtar Ahmaed Shaikh, brother of another convict, Mohammad Ali Shaikh, said his family too will appeal in the high court against the trial court’s verdict.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2015.