Mumbai serial blasts convict Mustafa Dossa dies

Mumbai, June 28

Mumbai serial blasts case convict Mustafa Dossa died of cardiac arrest on Wednesday at the JJ Hospital here, hours after he was rushed there due to chest pain.

According to Hospital dean TP Lahane, Dossa, died at 2.30 pm due to cardiac arrest.

Dossa (60), who was convicted along with five others in second leg of the trial in the 1993 serial blasts case, was admitted to the jail ward of the hospital around 3 am Wednesday.

He was a close aide of fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim.

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The CBI, during the arguments on the quantum of sentence for the blasts convicts, had sought capital punishment for Dossa, saying that his role in the blasts was "more severe" than that of hanged convict Yakub Memon.

The CBI said Dossa was one of the "brains" behind the conspiracy and that his degree of responsibility towards the commission of the crime was the highest.

Dossa was admitted after he complained of chest pain and had uncontrolled hypertension, diabetes and infection, Lahane said.

The court 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accused, including Dossa and extradited gangster Abu Salem, under the charges of murder, conspiracy and sections of now repealed TADA, while the sixth accused Riyaz Siddiqui was convicted only under TADA Act.

Some 257 people were killed in the coordinated blasts that ripped through the city on March 12, 1993.

The court had acquitted another accused Abdul Quayyum of all charges.

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. PTI