Eleven persons convicted in 1993 RSS office bomb blast case

CHENNAI: Fourteen years after the attack on the RSS headquarters that left 11 people dead, a designated TADA court on Thursday convicted 11 people in the case and awarded life imprisonment to three of them.

Designated Judge T Ramasamy, however, acquitted four persons, including SA Basha, founder of the banned Al Umma for lack of evidence against them.

"There is no evidence what-so-ever to prove that all the accused here-in and the organisations (Al Umma, Jihad Committee and Islamic Peace Organisation) were involved in the said conspiracy, particularly in the demolition of the RSS office," the Judge observed.

Kaja Nizamuddin, Hyder Ali and Abubakkar Siddique were awarded jail terms ranging from 10 years rigorous imprisonment to life sentences under various sections of TADA and IPC for causing death due to terrorist act and criminal conspiracy, among other things.

"There is overwhelming evidence against Siddique, Hyder Ali, Immam Ali (since dead), Nizamuddin and Mustaq Ahmed (absconding) through confessional statements and other materials," the Judge said.

Immam Ali, a suspected ISI agent who had escaped from custody in Madurai was gunned down in Bangalore in an encounter with the police on September 29, 2002 while another accused Jihad Committee Founder President Palani Baba was hacked to death by suspected RSS sympathisers on January 28, 1997.

In all there were 18 accused.

In all, 18 people, including Basha, had been named as accused in the case.

Two other prominent persons listed as accused were Imam Ali, a suspected ISI agent who had escaped from custody in Madurai and gunned down in Bangalore in an encounter with the police on September 29, 2002, and Jihad Committee Founder President Palani Baba, who was hacked to death by suspected RSS sympathisers on January 28, 1997.

The CBI was entrusted with the investigation after it was found that RDX had been used to blast the state RSS headquarters building on August 8, 1993.

While seven were out on bail, one person Mustaq Ahmed was absconding.
Of the 431 cited as witnesses, 224 were examined during the course of the trial which commenced on August 7, 1995. The charge-sheet was filed on June 8, 1994.