Former Mumbai police commissioner, R D Tyagi, and eight serving Maharashtra police officials were on Wednesday discharged in a 1993 Mumbai riots case.

Tyagi, then a joint commissioner, had led a team into Suleman Bakery in south Mumbai on January 9, 1993 and killed nine suspected rioters holed up there.

Sessions Judge P V Bhavkar agreed with the defence lawyer, Shrikant Shivde, that the policemen had resorted to firing in the course of their duty.

Tyagi was among 18 policemen indicted by Justice B N Srikrishna, who had led an inquiry into the riots, in the Suleman Bakery firing case.

When the Democratic Front government came to power in the state in 1998 it decided to implement the Srikrishna Commission's recommendations and pressed charges against Tyagi and other accused 2000.