Abdul Karim Tunda acquitted in 1993 serial blasts case

A special court in Ajmer on Thursday acquitted Abdul Karim Tunda(80) in the 1993 serial blasts case. The Terrorist and Anti-Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) court on 29 February acquitted Tunda due to a lack of evidence.

Two other accused, Irfan (70) and Hameeduddin (44), have been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The charges were framed against Tunda, and two other accused, identified as Irfan and Hamiruddin, for allegedly orchestrating the blasts in Lucknow, Kanpur, Hyderabad, Surat and Mumbai on the intervening night of December 5-6, 1993.

Advocate Shafqat Sultani of Tunda said that the CBI failed to present any strong evidence against Abdul Karim Tunda, ANI reported.

“Abdul Karim Tunda is innocent, today the Court gave this judgement. Abdul Karim Tunda has been acquitted in all sections and all acts. CBI prosecution could not produce any concrete piece of evidence before the court in TADA, IPC, Railway Acts, Arms Act, or Explosive Substances Act,” Advocate Sultani told reporters.

The central agency had accused Tunda of being the mastermind behind the blasts on four trains on the first anniversary of the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition. “We had been saying from the beginning that Abdul Karim Tunda is innocent…Irfan and Hamiduddin have been convicted and the quantum of the sentence will be pronounced shortly,” he added.

This is not the first time that a court has ruled in favour of Tunda for a similar reason. In March 2016, a Delhi court said the police could not prove that Tunda, a man with a blown-off hand, was a bomb-maker. The court said there was no proof that Tunda could be a Lashkar-e-Taiba bomb-maker.

He has already been let off in the Sadar Bazaar and Kotla bomb blasts for lack of evidence.

Tunda was arrested by Indian authorities near the Indo-Nepal border in 2013. Following his arrest, Tunda faced a slew of charges related to terrorism, including conspiracy, murder, and waging war against the state.