Pakistani gets lifer in Mumbai blasts case

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">MUMBAI: A sessions court on Friday awarded life sentence to 11 convicts, including a Pakistani national, who triggered a chain of bomb blasts in the city in 1998.<br /><br />Amid beefed-up security and a packed court room, judge A L Achliya awarded the sentence to the 11 convicts. <br /><br />The judge also directed the state government not to grant any remission of sentence to the accused after the usual 14 years.<br /><br />"Considering the seriousness of the offence committed by them, the state will not remit the sentence. However, the state can consider the case of Afzal Abdul Hamid Khan (60) separately looking at his age and sickness," Achliya said.<br /><br />The convicts, are Aftab Sayeed Ahmed Shaikh (36), Asgar Kadar Shaikh (38), Afzal Abdul Hamid (60), Iqbal Mohammed Hanif (35), Jaffer Abdul Shaikh (43), Kadir Mohammed Shafi (31), Shaikh Shahid Khalid Ansari (30), Shabir Bashir Chauhan (48), Javed Gulam Hussain (42), Farooq Yusuf Shaikh (40) and Mohammed Yakub Abdul Majeed (32). <br /><br />Among them, Javed Gulam Hussain is a Pakistani national, police alleged. <br /><br />In its order, the court has acquitted Shamshed Gulam Kadir Hyder (36) and directed the police to deport him to Pakistan at the earliest. <br /><br />However, Kadir Hyder told mediapersons that he was not a Pakistani national. "The charges framed against me are false. I will be fasting unto death till I get justice," Hyder said.<br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Next page: </span><a href="http://www.thetimesofindia.online/articleshow/msid-772464,curpg-2.cms">Prosecution sought death penalty</a><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br />On June 29, the court convicted the accused after finding them guilty of offences to destabilise the country and creating communal rift by a series of explosions.<br /><br />Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said the court''s final sentence was fair and just. "However, I had sought death penalty for Aftab Sayed Ahmed, Asgar Kadar Shaikh, Farooq Yusuf Shaikh and Javed Gulam Hussain," Nikam said.<br /><br />The accused have been charged for murder and conspiracy under sections 120-B, 302, 304, 307, 324, 326 of the IPC and section 151 of the Indian Railways act 1989 among others. <br /><br />The court has also directed the jail authorities to lodge the accused in separate cells, bearing in mind the gravity of the offence committed by them.<br /><br />According to Nikam, the accused had allegedly hatched a conspiracy in December 1997 at the behest of the ISI to create a chain of explosions at railway stations, platforms and railway tracks in the city to induce fear and destabilise the country.<br /><br />Subsequently, between January 23 and February 27, 1998, a total of five bomb blasts were carried out in the city at Kanjurmarg station on the central railway, near Virar station, on railway tracks between Goregaon and Malad, near Santa Cruz railway station and on platform number two at Kandivali railway station on western railway route. <br /><br />The explosions left four people dead and injured 30 others.<br /><br />However, unhappy with the court''s judgement, the accused have decided to appeal in the High Court.</div> </div>