MCOCA Court sentences 5 Terrorists to Death in 2006 Mumbai Train Blast Case

In 2006 Mumbai Suburban Train Bomb blast case, a MCOCA court sentenced 5 of the twelve convicts to death on Wednesday. The remaining seven were handed life imprisonment.

Justice Yatin Shinde sentenced to death Ehtesham Sidduiqui, Asif Khan, Faisal Shaikh, Naveed Khan and Kamal Ansari, for planting the bombs on the trains.

Tanveer Ansari and Mohammed Ali, who provided the premises in Govandi for assembling the bombs, and Sajid Ansari, who made the timers and the electric circuits used to set off the bombs were given life sentences.

On 11 July 2006, 7 blasts took place on local trains in Mumbai during a span of 11 minutes, killing nearly 200 people and injuring about 700 others. The examination of witnesses resumed after a span of two years after the country’s Supreme Court lifted its 2008 stay order on the case.

Some 350 people were detained 36 hours after the incident in Maharashtra — police claim that these are people rounded up for investigations.

On 14 July 2006, Lashkar-e-Qahhar, a terrorist organisation possibly linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), claimed responsibility for the bombings. In an e-mail to an Indian TV channel, the outfit claimed that it organised the bombings using 16 people who are all “safe”.

According to the e-mail, the main motive was a retaliation to the situation in the Gujarat and Kashmir regions, possibly referring to the alleged oppression of Muslim minorities in certain parts of the region. It also said that the blasts were part of a series of attacks aimed at other sites such as the Mumbai international airport, Gateway of India, the Taj Mahal in Agra and the Red Fort in New Delhi.

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