By IANS
Mumbai : A special terror court Monday sentenced four policemen to six years' rigorous imprisonment each for helping ferry weapons used in the 1993 Mumbai serial lasts, and handed a 10-year jail term to a man who took an AK-56 gun from Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt.
Manzoor Ahmed, who had taken the AK-56 from Sanjay Dutt's residence and handed it to another person during the blasts, was also fined Rs.50,000.
The four police constables were fined Rs 25,000 each for aiding and abetting the transportation of smuggled arms and weapons used in the bombings. They will have to serve another six months in jail if they fail to pay up the fine.
The special Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court also ordered Dutt to appear before it Friday. Dutt has been found guilty under the Arms Act but absolved of charges under the more stringent TADA Act.
The verdicts come more than 14 years after a series of explosions ripped through Mumbai over a two-hour-period on March 12, 1993, killing 257 people and grievously injuring 713. Property worth Rs.300 million was damaged.
Special TADA judge Pramod Kode, sitting inside the high-security TADA court in central Mumbai, said the four policemen – Ashok Muneshwar, S.Y. Palshikar, R. Mali and P. Mahadik – who were stationed at the Srivardhan police station, were "part of a police team that had been paid a bribe of Rs.700,000 for allowing the contraband consignment to be cleared."
"All the four were found guilty of not thoroughly checking the truck carrying the smuggled arms and ammunition in spite of intercepting it at Dongar Phata on the night of Jan 9, 1993, after it landed on Dighi, in coastal Maharashtra," Kode said.
He brushed aside the prosecution's plea for a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, saying the four were subordinates of former police sub-inspector V.K. Patil, another accused who was a senior officer and the "main man" who had taken the decision to wave through the truck carrying the arms and weapons.
"Taking into consideration the plea of the accused that they being the sole earners of their respective families have lost their jobs following arrest and have already undergone three years imprisonment with three more remaining, the jail term could be extended by a period of six months if they defaulted on the payment of the fine imposed," judge Kode ruled.
On Friday, the court sentenced five people to a maximum of three years' rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs.25,000 for helping smuggle in the weapons and explosives used in the blasts.
Dutt, found guilty of illegally possessing an AK-56 automatic rifle, which had been smuggled into the country, faces up to five years in jail.
But, along with some other convicts in the serial bombings case, Dutt has sought relief under the Probation of Offenders Act (POA), under which the court can release a person who has been found guilty of a crime that is not punishable by death or life imprisonment.
Relief under POA is subject to a convict's conduct and fulfilling some conditions.
The TADA court is now left with the task of passing sentences on 90 remaining convicts, including Dutt, who have all been found guilty under various sections of the stringent TADA Act and the Arms Act.
The judge is expected to hand out the minor sentences first before moving on to the major convictions. The sentences will be given out in batches.
After a long-drawn trial which started in January 1994, the TADA court, housed inside the high-security Arthur Road jail in central Mumbai's Byculla locality, began pronouncing verdicts in September last year.