A special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act court (TADA) will set the date to pronounce the quantum of punishments of five convicts, including Abu Salem in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case on Tuesday.
The TADA court had on 16 June 2017 convicted six persons, Mustafa Dossa, Abu Salem, Karimullah Khan, Firoz Abdul Rashid Khan, Riyaz Siddiqui and Tahir Merchant in the Mumbai blasts case and had acquitted a seventh accused, Abdul Quayyum. Mustafa Dossa died shortly after, suffering from cardiac arrest on 28 June 2017.
Arguments on the quantum of sentence continued after the conviction and the hearing concluded on August 10. Now the court is expected to pronounce the date of sentencing on Tuesday, according to a Quint report.
All the accused were facing multiple charges which included criminal conspiracy, waging war against the Government of India and murder. The prosecution had in June told the court that it would seek maximum punishment under the law for the convicts.
The Mumbai blast of March 12, 1993, resulted in 257 fatalities and over 700 were injured. The attacks were planned by Dawood Ibrahim, the Pakistan-based underworld boss and India's 'most wanted' fugitive who also has his name prominently figuring on the 'most wanted' lists of the US and the Interpol.
This was the first ever terrorist attack in the world where RDX (Research Department Explosive ie cyclotrimethylene trinitramine) was used on such a large scale after the Second World War.