7 more 1993 blast convicts get 4 weeks to surrender

A day after actor Sanjay Dutt was granted four weeks time to surrender, seven other convicts including 70-year-old Zaibunnisa Anwar Kazi, were also given the same amount of time by the Supreme Court to turn themselves in to serve their remaining sentence in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case.

Granting relief to Abdul Razak Memon, Altaf Ali Sayed, Yusuf Mohsin Nulwalla, Zaibunnisa, Issaq Mohd Hajwane, Shariff Abdul Gafoor Parker alias Dadabhai and Kesri Adajania, a bench of justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan said no further time will be given to anyone to surrender on any ground.

The court granted the relief on the day the deadline fixed by it for them to surrender was set to expire.

The bench, however, refused to grant relief to another convict Yusuf Khan, who had sought extension of time to surrender till his review petition is decided by the Supreme Court, saying that relief cannot be granted on this ground.

The Apex court had on March 21 upheld the sentence of five years imprisonment of Yusuf Khan. The court had also upheld the jail term of life imprisonment, 10 years and five years respectively of Memon, Sayed and Nulwalla.

Apart from them, the court had also upheld the TADA court's verdict awarding five-years and life term to Zaibunnisa (70), who is suffering from cancer, and Parker (86), respectively.

The apex court had enhanced the five-year jail term of Hajwane (76) to life imprisonment and had awarded one-year jail term to Adajania (84).

The apex court had on April 16 refused to grant extension of the deadline to surrender to Zaibunnisa, Hajwane and Parker, who had pleaded they be allowed to remain out of jail till their clemency pleas were decided by the President.

A day thereafter, Dutt, 53, was granted four weeks to surrender after he urged the court to extend the deadline on humanitarian grounds.

Other convicts, including Zaibunnisa then filed a petition seeking relief on health and humanitarian grounds which was accepted by the apex court and they were also granted four weeks to surrender.

After Thursday’s order, all eight convicts, including Dutt, will have to surrender before the trial court in Mumbai by May 16.

The Mumbai serial blasts on March 12, 1993 had claimed 257 lives and injured over 700.