The CBI on Thursday filed a charge sheet against Ahmed Kamal Shaikh alias Ahmed Lambu, one of the prime accused in the Mumbai 1993 serial blasts case. The charge sheet has been filed five and a half months after his arrest.
Shaikh was absconding for almost two decades before he was declared a proclaimed offender and apprehended in Gujarat on June 1, 2018.
In the charge sheet submitted by the CBI before the TADA court, the CBI claimed that Shaikh was an ‘active member’ involved in the plotting of the conspiracy and was present in Dubai in January 1993, ‘working in close association’ with absconding accused Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar and his brother Anis Kaskar.
The charge sheet included a list of 11 witnesses and also a copy of Shaikh’s confession, in which he had confessed to his alleged involvement in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blast, his visit to Dubai, where now deceased, convicted accused, Mustafa Dossa had informed him and others about the conspiracy and it also mentioned how he had gone to Pakistan for arms training.
Shaikh had given his confessional statement before the magistrate’s court but had retracted when he was produced before the special TADA court in June.
Referring to the conspiracy meeting which held in Dubai before the Mumbai blast, the CBI said that in the meeting which was headed by Dawood and attended by absconding prime accused Mohammed Dossa and convicted accused Feroz Khan and Mohammed Salim Mira Shaikh, Ahmed Lambu along with four other accused were sent to Pakistan to receive training in handling arms and ammunition, throwing hand-grenades and making bombs. The Mumbai bomb blast was planned to avenge the Babri Masjid demolition.
The CBI has booked Shaikh on charges including murder and criminal conspiracy of the IPC as well as the now repealed Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act.
The CBI claimed that Shaikh had absconded to Dubai in 1995 after he learned that a co-accused had named him in a confessional statement.
The agency further alleged that Shaikh was assisted by absconding accused, Mohammed Dossa to procure a resident visa of UAE. It added that Shaikh was also given a fake passport and a job as an electronics salesman in Dubai.
The charge sheet alleged that in 2011, Shaikh arrived at the Chennai airport with a passport under the name of Ahmed Kamal Shah Walidiyat Haji Kamal. The CBI said that he had destroyed his previous two passports, one which showed his travel to Pakistan and another fake one made in 2011. It added that since his return to the country, Shaikh was living on rent with his family in various places in Mumbai.
On March 12, 1993, a series of blasts had occurred in Mumbai, leading to the death of 257 people and injuring 713. A charge sheet was filed by the CBI, naming 189 accused.
There have been two phases of the trial so far. While a death penalty has been awarded to Yakub Memon in the first phase, six men were convicted in September last year. Among them, Taher Merchant and Feroz Abdul Rashid Khan were given the death penalty.
