On 22nd June, the prosecution for the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts in which 257 people died, demanded the death penalty for the 5 out of 6 convicts in the case. One of those convicts was Mustafa Dossa.
Mustafa Dossa who was in his 50s, was deputed to oversee the shipping and retrieval of of arms, ammunition and explosives, including 3,000 kg of RDX from Dubai to India. It was reported that it was actually on Dossa’s instructions that arms were distributed among the accused. According to the CBI, Dossa was the first to get the ball rolling by sending the arms and ammunition for the blasts.
Dossa had also reportedly attended meetings at his brother Mohammed Dossa’s Dubai home between December 1992 and January 1993 to hatch the whole terror conspiracy. These meetings were also attended by Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon among others. Other accused including Firoz Abdul Rashid Khan were flown in by Dossa who facilitated their pick-up, accommodation and other arrangements. He had also sent some youth to Pakistan to acquire arms training to execute the blasts.
On Wednesday Mustafa Dossa died at at a Mumbai hospital due to a cardiac arrest after he had complained of chest pain while being lodged in the Arthur Road Jail.
Incidentally this death prompted a peculiar reaction from shop owners of Manish Market which is situated at a 5 minutes walking distance from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.
According to a report, after the word of Dossa’s death spread, the shopkeepers in Manish market started closing their shops. Apparently most of the shops in the market are owned, aided or financed by the Dossa family. According to a shopkeeper they had opened the shops in the morning but then shut it down in the afternoon after all the shopkeepers made an unanimous decision to do so.
A notice had then also reportedly been put up at the market complex which stated that all the shops in the complex would be closed for two days on Wednesday and Thursday. Many of the shopkeepers had also visited JJ Hospital to catch a final glimpse of Dossa.
Dossa was buried earlier today in Mumbai with over 200 people taking part in his funeral.
