Bombay serial bomb blasts in 1993. , Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Justice PD Kode, a retired judge of the Bombay High Court, once presided over one of the longest trials in the country’s criminal history: the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case.
On 12 March that year, 12 planned explosions rocked the financial capital, killing nearly 300 people and injuring over 700. Thirty years after that fateful day, Justice Kode reminisced about the trial, which began in 1995 and lasted for 12 years, during which three judges presided, 684 witnesses were examined and 100 were convicted.
Read also: Timeline: 1993 Mumbai blasts and its aftermath
The case involved over 13,000 pages of oral evidence, 7,000 pages of documents and 6,700 pages of statements of the accused. The charge sheet was over 10,000 pages long, and named 189 accused, giving an idea of the enormity of the trial.
“In a criminal offense trial, there are generally about one or two accused who are tried for one or two offenses relating to one or two incidents. Although the trial was huge, the task for the prosecution was immense as there were 124 accused. Normally about 30 questions are asked to each accused, but in this case there were about 300 questions. I have asked over 20,000 questions,” said the retired Bombay High Court judge.
“In a regular case, the operative order is around two to three pages, in this case it was 250-260 pages. The main decision was prepared by me in 12 parts with 12 font sizes but it was still 6,000 pages. It was to be compiled on a CD for the convicts to appeal against. There were 684 witnesses and a Deputy Commissioner of Police recorded 124 confessional statements, so his deposition went on for months. Besides the criminal trial, the properties of the absconding accused were attached and the order ran into 900 pages.
The absconding mastermind behind the attacks, accused gangsters Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim, were not arrested in the case. “Even before the blast took place, Dawood Ibrahim and his family fled the country. It is difficult to bring them back because our investigative agencies can work only within India. The police need help from other countries to trace the accused and then bring them back. It was very difficult to bring back Abu Salem. [He was extradited from Portugal]Justice Code explained. Can. Our investigating agencies need to be patted on the back for the work they have done with all the accused. The case was a conspiracy and 100 were convicted, which is a huge success.