A year after the Ahmedabad serial blasts,trial of the 20 different cases related to the attack is expected to begin by September-end in the special designated court. The Ahmedabad City Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) had arrested 57 people in connection with the blasts,while 40 are still absconding,which include the alleged mastermind,Tauqeer,and underworld gangster,Riyaz Bhatkal. The DCB has now started bringing the 57 accused from different jails across the country to frame charges against them in the cases. The 57 accused are lodged at different jails in Andhra Pradesh,Kerala,Karnataka,Maharashtra,Madhya Pradesh and Delhi,besides Gujarat. The DCB has to bring all the accused back to Gujarat for trial. Special Public Prosecutor Sudhir Brahmbhatt said: Of the 57 arrested,51 have already been brought to Ahmedabad to initiate the process of trial. The rest will be brought to Ahmedabad shortly and the charges will be framed against them in court. The trial is likely to begin by September-end. He said the police have submitted chargesheets in all the 20 cases,and two cases have already been committed to the designated court for trial. For speedy prosecution of the accused,the state government has appointed a designated court with Justice Bela Trivedi as the judge. The court of Metropolitan Magistrate G M Patel has been designated to handle the pre-trial procedures of the cases. Apart from Brahmbhatt,the state Legal Department has also appointed three other senior advocates as special public prosecutors in the cases. They are J M Panchal,H M Dhruva and Mitesh Amin and they have been assigned different cases for trial. Elsewhere,a battery of lawyers which includes the likes of I M Munshi,J R Pathan,M M Shaikh,K G Shaikh,L R Pathan,Irfan Munshi,Altaf Shaikh,D D Pathan and Samir Mansuri is defending the accused. 15 cases related to Surat bomb planting Apart from the 20 cases registered in Ahmedabad,15 more are registered with the Surat police in connection with the recovery of unexploded bombs and explosives. These will also be heard by Justice Bela Trivedi. The DCB has said that the same set of accused arrested for the Ahmedabad blasts had plotted to trigger explosions in Surat. The DCB claims that the bombs did not explode due to a technical fault in fitting the chips inside the bombs. They also claim that the conspiracy to trigger blasts in Ahmedabad and Surat was hatched by the same group simultaneously.
