Mumbai: Sentencing finally began on Friday in the1993 serial blast case and the first batch of convicts sentenced comprised of 5 villagers from a coastal village, Shekadi.
With a ragged coastline, small boats and tiny huts along the sea shore, it looks just like any other village along the Raigad coast but it was here that Tiger Memon exploited the poor fishermen and used them to land 1500 kilos of RDX on February 2 and February 8,1993.
Local men roped in to do the dirty work included three fishermen: Yashwant Bhoinkar, Abbas Dawood Shekhdare and Shahjahan Shekhdare, all of whom were found guilty of providing trawlers used to ferry arms and ammunition used in the blasts.
The two others sentenced were Rashid Umar Alware and Sharif Khan Adhikari, who helped in smuggling the ammunition and landing it on the Shekhadi coast.
All men were found guilty under Section 135 (b) of the Customs Act and sentenced to three years imprisonment and a fine of Rs 25,000 each.
“The court has ordered confiscation of the vessels which were used by the accused to smuggle the explosives and murder material,” said Special Public Prosecutor,” said Ujjwal Nikam.
While Alware and Adhikari have already served their sentence as undertrials, the Shekhdare brothers will have to serve seven months each.
Bhoinkar has also served more than half of his sentence. Meanwhile, the court also ordered the seizure of the trawlers owned by the Shaikhdares and Bhoinkar and also issued show cause notices to two others for providing their boats to Alware and Adhikari for the landing of explosives.
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