A YEAR after a series of blasts on Mumbai’s local trains killed 187 people and injured over 800, charges have been framed against 13 arrested accused, including key conspirators Faisal Shaikh, the city chief of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Asif Khan Bashir Khan. The trial will begin only after August 21 — the time given to the accused to get an order from the sessions court, on their petition seeking a transfer of the case from the special MCOCA court of Judge Mrudula Bhatkar.

Along with the 13 accused, 15 absconding accused, including LeT commander in chief (training) Azam Cheema and two deceased accused — Salim died in the blasts and Abu Osama died in a police encounter — have been charged for hatching the conspiracy.

The chargesheet names Cheema, Shaikh and Bashir Khan as key conspirators who hatched the plot in 1999. The prosecution’s case is that between February 2006 to July 11, 2006, the accused held several strategy sessions, choosing local trains as the target for the blasts. Pakistanis arrived in Mumbai to help them execute the blasts. The bombs, assembled in the house of accused Mohammed Ali, were taken to Shaikh’s house. These were then taken in rexine bags to Churchgate station and planted in seven trains. The result was a series of blasts lasting around 10 minutes in seven trains.

The day began with Judge Bhatkar calling upon accused No. 5 Mohammed Majid, who had claimed on Monday that he needed an Urdu translator to grasp the charges against him as he didn’t understand Hindi. The judge then asked him how he had been filing applications so far. To this Majid replied — in Hindi. He was consulting a lawyer from Kolkata Mohammed Hashmi.

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