1993 blasts: Court exempts Sanjay Dutt
till June-end

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June 02, 2003 20:47 IST

A special court on Monday exempted actor Sanjay Dutt from personal appearance till June-end in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case stating he has gone abroad for stage shows with the court's permission.

It also exempted 84 other accused in the case till June 16 and reserved its order until Tuesday.

Co-accused Salim Khan Durrani and Mohammed Iqbal were also not present due to illness, and the court exempted them till June 5.

About 30 accused were produced before the court of designated judge P D Kode.

After hearing the arguments at length, the court reserved its order on including co-accused Majnu Mustaffa in the trial. He was deported from Dubai and arrested at a stage when the trial in the case had already reached its fag end.

Majnu's name does not figure in the list of accused or absconding accused filed by Central Bureau of Investigation in the court, but is present in the confessions of the co-accused.

The court has asked the CBI to produce witnesses to tender evidence against co-accused Ejaz Pathan on June 9.

Six accused, whose names figure in the confession of Pathan, have been told to remain present when the witnesses will be examined. The accused are Mohammed Dawood, Babulal Kasam, Sultan-e-Rome, Shahnawaz Khan, Etyeshyam and Manoj Kumar Gupta.

The March 1993 serial explosions killed 257 people and maimed 713, besides damaging property worth Rs 300 million.

A record number of 13,000 pages have been recorded as evidence by the 684 witnesses examined by the CBI. Altogether, 38,070 questions were put to the accused to record their statements.

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