Prosecution seeks death for 8, lifer for rest in 7/11 blasts

The prosecution on Wednesday demanded capital punishment for eight persons of the 12 convicted in the 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts, while it sought life imprisonment for the remaining four even as the special MCOCA court hearing the case reserved its order on sentencing for September 30.

Dubbing all the 12 convicts in the case as “merchants of death”, Special Public Prosecutor Raja Thakare pressed for death to eight of them. “Considering their role, eight convicts deserve <g data-gr-id="28">death</g> penalty,” he told the court. Earlier this month, Judge <g data-gr-id="26">Yatin</g> Shinde convicted 12 accused while acquitting one person in the case. Serial blasts on the suburban local trains on July 11, 2006, killed at least 188 people and left over 800 injured.

The convicts for whom death was sought are- Kamal Ahamed Ansari, Dr Tanvir Ahmed Ansari, Mohammed Faisal Shaikh, Ehtesham Siddiqui, Shaikh Alam Shaikh, Mohammed Sajid Ansari, Naved Hussain Khan and Asif Khan. For the remaining four convicts – Mohamid Majid Shafi, Muzzammil Shaikh, <g data-gr-id="27">Soheil</g> Shaikh and Zamir Ahmed Shaikh– Thakre told the court that it may consider punishment slightly on a different footing than the other eight.

“In the event the court finds that these four convicts deserve some leniency then my submission is that, they are found guilty for offences which attract multiple life imprisonments, they should be sentenced to life till their end of their lives or for not less than 60 years,” the prosecutor told 

the court.

Drawing parallels with Yakub Memon, (executed convict of 1993 Mumbai serial blasts), the prosecutor said Memon was a Chartered Accountant and was from a respectable background. “He had no antecedents and was suffering from depression from <g data-gr-id="29">1996</g> but the Supreme Court did not consider it as the mitigating circumstances,” he argued.