Mulund blast accused wants to bury terrorists

An accused in the 2003 Mulund blasts case is ready to do what Muslim organisations and clerics in the city have said they would never allow to happen at the community’s burial grounds.

Saquib Nachen is ready to give a “decent burial” to the nine terrorists killed during 26/11. In an application to the designated Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) judge M R Puranik, he said he was willing to give land he owns outside his village for the burial. He was even ready to perform namaz-e-janaza. But in Borivili-Padgha, Saquib’s village in Bhiwandi taluka of Thane district some 90 km from Mumbai, the application created a flutter. The Muslim community, including his octogenarian father Hamed Nachen, who is also the chairman of the Muslim Qabrastan Committee in Borivili-Padgha, is dead against the move.

The court has dismissed Saquib’s plea. “The application was beyond the designated POTA court’s jurisdiction,” said Rohini Salian, special public prosecutor in the Mulund blasts case.