Twenty-nine years after the 1993 Bombay blasts, a special CBI court on Monday sent four members of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim to judicial custody till June 13.
Abu Bakar, Yusuf Batla, Shoeb Baba and Sayyed Qureshi were arrested by the Gujarat Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) on May 17. They were taken into the CBI's custody on May 21 and the agency on Monday sought an extension of its custody. Special judge R.R. Bhosale, however, rejected the plea.
All four are accused of smuggling and transporting RDX and other explosives used in the blasts, and to transport AK-56 rifles, bomb triggers and other weapons. They are all from Mumbai, but on their passports their addresses are shown as Mira Road (Thane) for one, two from Bengaluru, and one from Tamil Nadu.
Booked under Passport Act
The Additional Director General of Police, Gujarat ATS, Amit Vishwakarma, said on May 12 that all the four accused were booked under the Passport Act, as they were accused of obtaining passports on the basis of forged documents and fake information so as to flee the country. TheATS had duly informed the CBI regarding their arrest and shared all its information, adding that they would be handed over to the agency after their remand ends.
On March 12, 1993, 12 co-ordinated bombs went off in the city, killing 257 and injuring 700 others. The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act court has convicted over 100 people in the attacks. Main accused Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon are still at large.
