1993 Mumbai serial blast accused behind the bars; Gujarat ATS to probe his role fine point

Mumbai, February 10: The Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Monday arrested an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts from the airport in Maharashtra's capital, as revealed by the official. He was on the radar of Gujarat ATS since last year in connection with a drug smuggling racket.

 

"The accused, Munaf Halari Moosa, was arrested from the Mumbai international airport on Monday morning upon his arrival from abroad", a Gujarat ATS official statement read. "Moosa is an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts in which around 260 people were killed and more than 700 were injured", it added.

 

 

After the blasts, he fled the country and was hiding in South Africa. He was under the ATS lens for his alleged role in the landing of drugs worth Rs 900 crore on the Gujarat coast last year. "The Gujarat ATS is probing his role in the drugs case," the official added.

 

The 1993 Bombay bombings were a series of 13 bomb explosions that took place in Mumbai, India, then known as Bombay, on 12 March 1993. The single-day attacks resulted in 317 fatalities and 1,400 injuries. The 13 bombs which exploded in quick succession brought the city's most iconic buildings to their knees, beginning with the symbol of its financial supremacy, the Bombay Stock Exchange.

 

The explosions also ripped through the Air India building in the south to the Sea Rock hotel at Land's End in the west, a strip of land that juts into the sea. The Plaza cinema owned by Bollywood legend V Shantaram, and the Century Bazar belonging to the Birlas, who along with the Tatas, were India's first business family, were left with gaping, smouldering holes. The headquarters of the right-wing Hindu Shiv Sena party was an obvious target because the blasts were revenge for the religious riots of December 1992 and January 1993, in which a large number of Muslims were killed.