Husband, wife convicted for Zaveri Bazar, Gateway blasts

SMILING KILLER: Hanif Syed, an auto driver and one of the three persons convicted by the special Pota court, is taken to Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai on Monday

HREE FOUND GUILTY IN 2003 TERROR ATTACK, SENTENCING ON AUG 4

Kartikeya & Mateen Hafeez | TNN

Mumbai: Six years after the terror attacks at the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazar killed 52 people, a special Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) court on Monday found three of the accused, including a woman, guilty of carrying out the twin blasts. This is the first time that a husband-wife terror team has been convicted and the first instance of a woman terrorist actively participating in making the bombs.

Hanif Syed, now 52, his wife Fehmida Syed, 49, and Ashrat Ansari, 38, face the prospect of being sentenced to death for the attack that was planned in Dubai with the help of Pakistani handlers.

As the court convened, Judge M R Puranik took a few minutes to pronounce the guilty verdict and then adjourned the matter to August 4 for arguments on the quantum of punishment. “I will ask for the strictest possible punishment for the barbaric act that took so many lives,’’ special prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told TOI. The convicts now face the prospect of either spending a life behind bars or getting capital punishment.

The prosecution relied on both eyewitness accounts and material evidence to nail the accused. A key eyewitness was the driver of the taxi which was used to carry out the blast at the Gateway. Sheer providence saved Shivnarain Pandey as he was not near the taxi when the bomb went off. He later led the police to the house of the accused in Andheri.

“The whole conspiracy was hatched in Dubai. The same accused had earlier planted bombs at Andheri and Ghatkopar, but those were gelatin sticks. However, their handlers in Pakistan were unhappy with the low-intensity blasts and asked them to go for something bigger. Thus RDX was used at Gateway and Zaveri Bazar, leading to several casualties,’’ Nikam said.

Judge Puranik had before him the confessional statements of the accused, evidence of recovery of the explosive substances from their house and details of the conspiracy given by a co-accused who later turned approver. Nasir Ahmed, the man who was called the chief conspirator in the case, was never brought to trial as he was gunned down in a police encounter in September 2003.

Defence advocate Sushan Kunjuraman said that he would appeal against the verdict to the Bombay high court. “We have argued that Hanif and Fehmida’s minor daughter had been taken into police custody and thus they were under duress to confess to the crime. Also, we have pointed out that the taxi driver had been given money by a political party to give testimony,’’ added defence advocate Khan Abdul Wahab.

Initially, there were two other accused in the case—Mohd Ansari alias Usman Ladoowala and Mohd Ansar Shaikh alias Hasan Batterywala. However, they were discharged by the Supreme Court in 2008 on the basis of a clean chit given by the Pota Review Committee in 2005. They had spent five years in jail.

WHAT HAPPENED THAT DAY?
Two powerful blasts took place almost simultaneously in two taxis on the afternoon of August 25, 2003. The first explosion took place at 1.05 pm in crowded Zaveri Bazar in Kalbadevi. Another blast took place just minutes later at the iconic Gateway of India. Fifty-two people (36 at Zaveri Bazar and 16 at the Gateway) were killed and 184 were injured

THE MOTIVE
Revenge. Nasir Ahmed, a resident of Hyderabad who was later killed in a police encounter, along with some LeT operatives, formed the Gujarat Muslim Revenge Force (GMRF) to avenge the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002. The outfit hatched the dastardly plot that was funded from Dubai

LUCKY BREAK Shivnarain Pandey, the driver of the taxi with the bomb parked at the Gateway, decided to answer nature’s call. That decision saved his life and helped him assist the police in tracking down the culprits

BLAST FROM THE PAST
The three accused have been found guilty of murder, attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy under the IPC. They were also convicted under various sections of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota), Explosive Substances Act and Damage to Public Property Act

THE GUILTY TRIO
1. Hanif Syed (52). He worked as an electrician in Dubai and later as an auto driver in Mumbai. Police say he was indoctrinated in Dubai and planted the bomb at the Gateway
2. Fehmida Syed (49). Hanif’s wife
who was also named as a fellow conspirator. She was involved in planting the bomb at the Gateway
3. Ashrat Ansari (38). He was a zari
worker who lived in Andheri and visited Hanif often. He helped make the bombs and planted the one at Zaveri Bazar

WHAT NEXT
On August 4 the court will hear arguments on the quantum of punishment. The trio faces either life in prison or death

The Times of India, July 28, 2009