Mumbai blasts: Roles of planners, planters

New Delhi: Prosecution in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case had apprised the Supreme Court of roles assigned to various accused who acted as planners, planters and landing agents for the explosives with the help of customs and police officials for carrying out the attacks.

Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, and Mohammed Ahmed Dossa, Ayub @ Abdul Razak Memon and other absconding accused were described as planners and mastermind of the blasts along with Yakub Memon whose death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court. Younger brother of absconding accused Tiger Memon and a Chartered Accountant by profession, Yakub was found guilty of possessing arms and ammunitions and distributing them among the accused besides purchasing vehicles used in the blasts. Among the other 10 death convicts whose punishment was commuted to life sentence were those given the role of planting the explosives by Yakub. The death sentence of Abdul Gani Turk, a taxi driver, was commuted to life for the Century Bazaar blast. He was found guilty of placing RDX under a manhole at Century Bazaar. The blast had taken place when a bus ran over the explosives, killing about 113 people, the highest casualties at a single spot among the 12 explosions. He was also held guilty of fitting explosives in vehicles which had been parked at different blast sites. Parvez Nazir Ahmed Shaikh, another death row convict whose sentence was modified to life term, had parked an RDX-laden scooter at Katha Bazaar in south Mumbai where the explosion killed four persons and injured 21. He had also planted a suitcase filled with RDX and a timer device in room 1840 of Sea Rock Hotel at Bandra causing no loss of lives but damage to property worth Rs 9 crore. PTI