CBI takes custody of 1993 Mumbai blasts accused from Gujarat ATS

MUMBAI: CBI took custody of four alleged conspirators of the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts from the

Gujarat

anti-terrorist squad (ATS) and produced them before a special court in the city on Monday. The court remanded the four to seven days’ CBI custody.

Sources said the CBI will inquire with the accused about their role in the blast and other wanted accused, including Dawood Ibrhaim and Tiger Memon.

Special CBI prosecutor Deepak Salvi sought their custody, saying they have played an active role in the criminal conspiracy to cause the bomb blasts of 1993. They were allegedly present at the first conspiracy meeting at the White House in Dubai attended by gangster Dawood Ibrahim.

The four accused—Abu Bakar, Sayyed Qureshi, Mohammed Shoeb Qureshi and Mohammed Yusuf Ismail Shaikh alias Yusuf Bhatka—were caught near Ahmedabad airport by the Gujarat ATS on a specific tip-off recently. The ATS booked them for using forged documents to obtain passports to flee the country in 1995. The Interpol had issued a red-corner notice against them in the blast case.

On Saturday, the CBI approached the Gujarat ATS to seek their custody in the case and brought them to Mumbai for investigation.

The four accused had been in hiding since the past 29 years after creating new identities and procuring passports in their new names with the help of forged documents.

Recently, they landed in Gujarat from abroad from where they had been arrested by the ATS. It is stated that Indian government agencies played a key role in establishing their identities which led to their arrest in Gujarat.

The accused would work for gold smuggler Mohammed Dossa, a henchman of Dawood Ibrahim, and fled the country after the blast. The special Terrorist and Destructive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court had declared them as “proclaimed offenders” and they were wanted in the case. Dawood and Tiger Memon were masterminds of the blasts which they had executed with the help of their gang members, in which 257 people were killed in Mumbai.