A Muslim bomber was convicted of murder yesterday for an attack on a jewelry market during a day of blasts in India's economic capital 13 years ago that killed 257 people.
Mohammed Kasam Ghansar faces a possible death sentence for killing 17 people and wounding 57 after leaving an explosive-laden scooter outside the market that was primed to explode minutes after he walked away.
The attack was one of 12 blasts that rocked Mumbai on March 12, 1993, allegedly on the orders of the city's Muslim-dominated underworld in retaliation for nationwide Hindu-Muslim riots that left hundreds dead.
Security was tight in the court area as the verdicts came after two major bomb attacks in western India in the past two months that killed more than 200 people.
One of these attacks targeted packed commuter trains in Mumbai and the other was in a town that has been hit by Hindu-Muslim violence.
Ghansar was acquitted of helping to spirit alleged mastermind Tiger Memon out of the country hours before the deadliest bomb attack in India's history. Memon remains on the run.
Ghansar was the first person convicted of planting bombs in the early stages of verdicts announced for 123 people standing trial at a special terrorism court in Mumbai in a process likely to take weeks.
Four members of Memon's family, including three of his brothers, were convicted on Tuesday of preparing for attacks but not of planting any of the devices.
The scooter bomb left by Ghansar was one of a series of blasts targeting commercial and strategic buildings including Mumbai's stock exchange and the offices of national carrier Air India. The bombs also left more than 700 injured.
Ghansar, referred to in court as defendant number nine, also traveled with another group of alleged bombers who dumped explosives-filled suitcases in three hotels.
The defendant looked straight ahead and showed little emotion as trial Judge P.D. Kode read out the verdict at a makeshift court attached to a city prison.
Kode will continue delivering verdicts tomorrow for the remaining defendants who include Bollywood film star Sanjay Dutt. They all face a minimum of five years in prison if convicted.
Some 30 suspects remain on the run including the two alleged key players, Memon and notorious Mumbai underworld boss Dawood Ibrahim.
They are believed to be in hiding abroad.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema