No closure as long as Dawood is free: ex-Mumbai top cop on 1993 blasts verdict

Mumbai: Though a TADA court on Friday convicted second set of accused in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, there would be no "closure" as long as Dawood Ibrahim, the main conspirator, remains at large, former top cop M N Singh said.

The Mumbai court on Friday convicted six persons including gangsters Mustafa Dossa and Abu Salem. In the earlier phase of trial, a hundred accused including Yakub Memon were convicted.

"There is no final closure yet. Full sense of justice is denied to the victims due to government's inability to bring Dawood and other main conspirators to justice," said Singh, a former Mumbai Police Commissioner.

Speaking to PTI, Singh, who was joint commissioner of police in Mumbai in 1993, said Friday’ verdict is on the expected lines.

"But, in my view it's not justice to the victims who died in blasts, because the main conspirators Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Anees Ibrahim and Mohammad Dossa are still in Pakistan and our government failed to bring them to book," he said.

"There is absolutely no chance" that Dawood will ever be brought back, and therefore there would be no closure, the retired IPS officer said.

"It shows our investigation was right," said K L Bishnoi, former additional director general of police.

Bishnoi, then a DCP, was a part of the investigating team which made initial arrests and recorded confessions of some of the accused including the actor Sanjay Dutt.

"We are happy with the verdict," said Suresh Walishetty, one of the chief investigating officers of the case.

Walishetty also said that while deciding the sentence for Abu Salem, the court would not be bound by the extradition treaty between India and Portugal (from where he was extradited in 2005). The treaty is between two governments and not with the court, he said.

The court is going to hear arguments on quantum of sentence from the next week.