Former ATS chief K P Raghuvanshi on Wednesday welcomed the court verdict in the 2006 serial blasts on Mumbai local trains, saying it had vindicated the efforts of his team of officers which conducted the probe even as the defence counsel said they will appeal in the High Court.

“I congratulate all my 15 officers, who had probed the case. The verdict is a vindication of our efforts. I am happy that the court has appreciated the evidence and given an appropriate quantum of punishment in the case,” he said.

Five persons were sentenced to death and seven others imprisoned for life by a special court here for the serial blasts that left 189 commuters dead and over 800 injured.

Soon after the quantum of sentence was pronounced, Raghuvanshi arrived at the city sessions court here and said, “I am satisfied with the quantum announced by the court. I would have been more happy had all the convicted been awarded death sentence.”

“All the claims of people who had accused us of arresting the wrong people have been proved false. With this verdict, police’s credibility has increased. The judgement proves that truth cannot be hidden,” he said.

Leading lawyers too hailed the decision of the court.

“I welcome the verdict because in this case the evidence was circumstantial and the prosecution was able to successfully prove the guilt of the accused,” said Ujjwal Nikam, a leading public prosecutor who has appeared on behalf the state in many terror-related cases.

Nikam said that the court had accepted that there was a criminal conspiracy to create the serial blasts during peak hours in local trains. However, in a criminal conspiracy all the conspirators have an equal role to play and they are also responsible individually and collectively for the terror act. Therefore, all the convicts should have got death punishment.

However, advocate Sharif Shaikh, who defended some of the convicts in this case, said, “They have been falsely implicated by the ATS (prosecuting agency). We shall appeal in the Bombay High Court. All those ATS officers who have fabricated evidence in this case will go behind bars.”

Leading defence lawyer Majeed Memon said the verdict was expected to be “harsh” because a serious offence had been committed against the society. However, the death penalty imposed on five convicts would assume finality only after the Bombay High Court confirms the punishment awarded to convicts.

In a move that would facilitate the pedestrians, Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta has ordered the officials to remove encroachments on the footpaths across the city.

In the order issued, Mehta has asked all the 24 ward offices in the city to make the footpaths free of encroachments by unauthorised hawkers, hotels, furniture shops, among others.

Confirming the move, Mehta said, “Yes, I have issued an order to this effect and I feel with the support of citizens, we should be able to make a difference.”

A senior BMC officer said that ward officers have been instructed to prepare a list of encroachments on a priority.

“All the assistant commissioners of the 24 wards have been given a stern order to create an inventory of unauthorised structures on footpaths across the city and demolish them,” the official added.

Another senior officer said, “Assistant commissioners will conduct a survey of illegal structures by keeping it’s photograph as record and then chalk out a plan to remove them.”

The survey will be carried out with the help of a special team formed by ward officers at each ward level, he added.

After the footpaths are cleared, the Additional Municipal Commissioners have to keep checking that there are no encroachments on the pavements again.

Welcoming BMC chief’s order, RTI activist Anil Galgali, said, “Let’s hope and do our bit to support Mehta to implement the decision, which no other BMC commissioner had taken.”

Pointing to “discrepancies” in the 2002 hit-and-run case involving Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, his lawyer raised a question in the Bombay High Court as to why police had gone for a blood test when no witness or FIR had ever suggested that the actor was drunk or was smelling of liquor.

Amit Desai, arguing on Salman’s appeal against conviction, alleged discrepancies made by police while drawing blood samples of the actor in the 14-year-old drink-and- driving case and said that the actor had not taken alcohol on the day of the mishap.

On May 6, the actor was sentenced to five-year jail term for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and driving under the influence of liquor. One person was killed and four injured when his car had rammed into a shop in suburban Bandra on September 28, 2002.

“Why Kisan Shengal, prosecution witness 27 and Senior Police Inspector of Bandra police station, took a decision to draw blood samples of Salman Khan…Why ? What prompted him?…,” asked Desai while arguing before Justice A R Joshi.

Desai said the complainant as well as star witness late Ravindra Patil, who was the police bodyguard of Salman at the relevant time, had not given any statement to police about the actor smelling of liquor either in his complaint.

Also, the lawyer said, the FIR does not say this and no other witness has suggested this till that time. Then what prompted police to go in for blood test of Salman, he asked.
Desai pointed out that in the entire evidence, there is no mention of police constables, officers and/or staff speaking about the smell of alcohol when the appellant arrived at Bandra police station on September 28, 2002 when the mishap had occurred.

He said the FIR had been lodged by the main witness, Ravindra Patil, who was accompanying Salman Khan in his car on the day of mishap from the time – around 11 pm of September 27, 2002 till 2.45 am of September 28, 2002.

According to the prosecution’s case, Patil had gone with Salman from the actor’s Galaxy Apartments at Bandra to Rain Bar at Juhu and then to JW Marriot hotel before the accident.
But nowhere Patil had made a mention of Salman smelling of liquor or taking drinks, said his lawyer.
“There is absolutely no mention – that he was slurring, that he was smelling, that he was staggering, that his gait was not proper….Our case is that he did not have alcohol.. then why PW-27 (Investigating officer Kishen Shengal) took the decision to send him to hospital?,” he asked.

Desai said that Salman was first sent to Bhabha Hospital where his blood could not be drawn. “But there is no witness who has been examined from Bhabha Hospital which is five minutes away from Bandra police station, he argued.

Later, when Salman was taken to JJ Hospital at Byculla, the medical officer there stated that he was smelling alcohol…..This is not a private matter, it is a police case, in the casualty department at Bhabha Hospital any competent officer could have smelt and recorded it. Why this was not done?” he asked and claimed this was a major discrepancy.