Life for 3 convicts in 2002-03 Mumbai blasts

MUMBAI: Thirteen years after a dozen commuters lost their lives in three explosions within four months, a special trial court ended the trial on Wednesday by sparing the bomb planter the noose.The court sentenced Muzammil Ansari, a mechanical engineer from Malegaon, to life imprisonment for the “rest of his life” a week after holding him guilty of planting bombs at three locations in Mumbai between December 2002 and March 2003 that also injured over 130.“It is not the rarest of rare case to award a death sentence,” said judge PR Deshmukh who presided over the trial under a special anti-terror enactment — the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) — which was repealed a decade ago. “If a person is hanged his life ends within a fraction of a second and he doesn’t realise or feel the mental, emotional or physical agony of victims,” he added, explaining why he did not sentence Muzammil to death, as sought by special public prosecutor Rohini Salian.“It would have made no difference had he given me the death sentence; it’s a false case against me,” Muzammil told TOI outside the court. The punishment includes a fine of Rs 3.75 lakh.The court had convicted 10 accused in the common trial for the blasts. Two of the other nine convicts were on Wednesday sentenced to life imprisonment but specifically for 20 years each, four to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment for arms possession and three others to two years each.