93 blasts mastermind dead

Mumbai:  Mustafa Dossa, one of the masterminds of the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts and a close aide of fugitive Dawood Ibrahim, today died of cardiac arrest at a hospital here.

Dossa, 60, died at Mumbai’s J J Hospital where he was admitted in the early hours on Wednesday after complaining of chest pain, a police official said. He was earlier this month convicted by a special TADA court here in the serial blasts case.

He had smuggled firearms, ammunition, detonators, hand grenades and highly explosive substances like RDX into India for the co-ordinated blasts that rocked Mumbai on March 12, 1993, claiming 257 lives and injuring over 700 people.

According to the hospital’s dean, T P Lahane, “Dossa was admitted to the jail ward of the hospital at 3 am.” He complained of chest pain and had uncontrolled hypertension, diabetes and infection, Lahane said. Dossa died at 2.30 pm due to cardiac arrest, he said.

The CBI had sought capital punishment for Dossa, arguing that his role in the serial blasts was “more severe” than that of hanged convict Yakub Memon.

According to the central probing agency, Dossa was one of the “brains” behind the conspiracy and his degree of responsibility towards the commission of the crime was the highest.

A special TADA court here had on June 16 convicted five accused, including Dossa and extradited gangster Abu Salem, under the charges of murder, conspiracy and sections of now repealed TADA, while the sixth accused Riyaz Siddiqui was convicted only under the TADA Act.

Special Judge G A Sanap’s had then observed that Dossa “actively, wilfully, deliberately and consciously” participated in the meeting (held at residence of his elder brother  in Dubai) “which gave birth to the original design of the heinous criminal conspiracy to take revenge against the Government and the Hindus” for demolition of Babri Masjid.

The trial of the seven accused — Abu Salem, Mustafa Dossa, Karimullah Khan, Firoz Abdul Rashid Khan, Riyaz Siddiqui, Tahir Merchant and Abdul Quayyum —was separated from the main case as they were arrested at the time of conclusion of the main trial. The court had acquitted Abdul Quayyum of all charges. (PTI)