India - Mumbai bombings trial

Three receive death sentence in Mumbai for bomb attack

Article published on the 2009-08-06 Latest update 2009-08-06 15:04 TU

Mohammad Haneef Sayyed sits in a police van on his way to the court in Mumbai.
(Photo : Reuters)

Three people, including a husband and wife, have been sentenced to death for killing 52 people in bomb attacks in Mumbai in 2003.

Mohammad Haneef Sayyed, his wife Fahmeeda Sayyed and Ashrat Ansari appeared at a special anti-terrorism court to hear their sentences after being found guilty a week ago.

Six years ago, high-explosive devices hidden in the boots of taxis exploded at Mumbai's Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar,  as part of a meticulously planned and executed attack. The court heard that it was an answer to atrocities committed on Muslims in the western Gujarat riots of 2002.

The prosecution claimed the trio were members of the banned Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, who have been blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people died.

Judge MR Puranik ordered all three of the convicted to be "hanged by the neck until dead" for murder, criminal conspiracy and terrorism. The death penalty is a rare sentence in India, and those who have been condemned have in the past received a pardon or had their sentence commuted.

Asked whether he thought there may be an atmosphere in India at the moment whereby pardons could be issued, editor of the revue Communalism Combat, Javed Anand, says this is unlikely.

"This is a serious issue, and in a country where you have the death sentence, it would be assumed by the public at large that the only appropriate punishment for this has to be the death sentence."

At the trial Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said, "It would be a mockery of justice if the death penalty is not imposed."

Defence lawyers for all three say they will appeal against the death sentence.

While Ashrat Ansari’s lawyer made no submissions, Mohammad Haneef Sayyed’s counsel called for his client to get a life sentence without parole. Fahmeeda Sayyed’s lawyer argued she was poor, uneducated and was pressured into committing the crime by her husband.

The trial has been the largest of its sort in Mumbai since the bombings in 2003 in which 257 people were killed, dubbed "Black Friday".