1993 Mumbai blasts convict dies of heart attack

Fifty-five-year-old Taher Merchant alias Taher Taklya, who had been sentenced to death by a TADA court in September last year in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case, died of a heart attack in Pune in the early hours of Wednesday.

Taklya, who was lodged at Pune’s Yerwada central prison, suffered a cardiac arrest at around 3 am.

He was rushed to the State-run Sasoon Hospital where he died at 3.45 am.

Confirming Taklya’s death, Additional DGP (Prisons) BK Upadhyay said: “He died at 3.45 am after failing to respond to the treatment at the hospital”.

On September 7 last year, TADA Court’s Special Judge GA Sanap had awarded death sentence to Taklya, after holding him guilty on various charges, including murder, hatching a criminal conspiracy to carry out the blasts, waging a war against the nation, supplying arms and ammunition, and other serious offences.

Taher had earlier been convicted under charges framed against them for criminal conspiracy (120-B), murder, attempt to murder and other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), relevant provisions of the TADA, Explosives Act, Explosive Substances Act, Arms Act and Destruction of Public Property Act.

Taklya was the key point person of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and key accused Tiger Memon in Dubai and it was he organsied the stay of the suspects in Dubai and travel for going to Pakistan for training.

He had also collected funds mobilised for the blasts and distributed those involved in the blasts.

As many as 257 persons were killed and 713 others injured in the serial explosions that rocked the country’s commercial capital on March 12, 1993. Property worth Rs 27 crore was destroyed in the blasts.

The serial blasts were the outcome of a larger conspiracy hatched in Dubai, Mumbai and other places in India. Initially, the investigation was conducted by Mumbai Police. In all 27 crimes were registered at various police stations.

On November 4, 1993, the Mumbai Crime Branch had filed a consolidated charge sheet before a special court.

Taklya is the fifth convict to have died while serving sentence in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case.

Earlier on May 5, 2013, an eighty-five-year-old convict in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case Issaq Mohammed Hajwane, whose seven years’ sentence had earlier been enhanced to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court recently, died in his native Sandheri village of Raigad district in coastal Konkan region, after protracted illness.

Ailing Hajwane was to have surrendered to jail authorities by May 17 as per the Supreme Court directive.

Dawood Ibrahim’s one-time accomplice Ejaz Pathan, who had been suffering from multiple aliments, had died at the JJ Hospital in Mumbai on June 15,2007, a week after he was sentenced to 10 years’ jail term by the TADA court in the serial blasts case.

Mohammed Iqbal Mohammed Yusuf Shaikh, who had been awarded capital punishment by a TADA court for his “repeated acts of terror” in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case, died of tuberculosis at Pune’s State-run Sassoon Hospital on November 6, 2007.

On June 28 last year, notorious smuggler and key convict Mustafa Dossa alias Mustafa Majnu died of a massive heart attack at the State-run JJ Hospital here, a day after the Prosecution rooted for a capital punishment to him in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case.