Judge Y D Shinde of the special MCOCA and NIA court accepted the prosecution's argument that there were strong aggravating circumstances to sentence five men to death and seven to life term. He observed that the serial blasts were not carried out “for settling any other personal score” and that the conspiracy was hatched in the “most calculated manner”, which led to seven powerful bombs exploding in a span of five minutes, terming the terror act as a “disaster”. Judge Shinde also noted that planting bombs on trains plying between Churchgate and Virar, in which commuters in the crowded coaches would have no opportunity to save themselves, showed that the “time and target chosen is significant”. He also agreed with the prosecution that the act created a “terror wave” and a “fear psychosis”, which disrupted not only the tempo of the city but also the suburban railway. The use of RDX, a special category explosive, was, according to Judge Shinde, “the special feature of the crime” that cost the state exchequer Rs 28 crore in losses. His one-sentence synopsis of the act of terror and its aftermath is however, most telling: “It is not just an isolated incident but it’s a case of systematic planting of 7 powerful bombs in a diabolic manner which was set with extreme precision so that all the explosions occurred within a span of just 5 minutes to cause utter chaos and confusion amongst helpless and defenseless victims.” Ruling that the aggravating circumstances made out a case of rarest of rare, judge Shinde also noted that none of the accused was lured into the conspiracy by monetary temptation and that they were well educated. He then systematically shot down each of the mitigating circumstances that the defence had propped up to plead leniency. Taking into consideration that both sides that cited various judgments to support their claims, he observed, “Both sides have relied on several judgments, which show both views. To my mind, young or old age is not universally accepted as a mitigating circumstance.” Rejecting illnesses of the accused as a mitigating circumstance, the judge ruled that written submissions about health were not “bona fide” and made “just for the purpose of making them. They are stereotype written submissions”. The defence take that the convicts faced socio-economic hardships also did not pass muster as the judge ruled: “To my mind, there is no point for the accused in now saying that their family is poor or that there is no one to take care for their family including their own parents.” He similarly rejected their defence of having reformed after receiving an education while in jail, ruling that the accused studied in jail because they had ample time inside. On the defence's ploy to bring in Arun Ferreira, who was accused of having Maoist links, to depose about the conduct of the accused in jail, the judge observed that the ideology of a person who followed the Maoist ideology “is to go against the administration and to have a grudge against the government”. He also did not consider the defence's argument that the convicts had reformed in jail solely on the fact that “the accused were in prison which is a controlled situation and there is no other option, but to behave as per the discipline of the prison”. He also backed up his argument against the possibility of reform with the fact that one the accused had used “foul language” against his predecessor judge Mridula Bhatkar during the course of the trial. “It is a pointer that they have scant regard for the judicial system and there is no scope for any reformation in them,” he observed. The argument on the effect that the judgment would have on the accused was also rejected as the judge said the accused had “commit(ed) the crime first and then cry of justice”. Additionally, Judge Shinde ruled that the allegations of police torture had not been proved, while the high level of education of Ehtesham Siddique and Naveed Khan showed that “they are sufficiently matured and are capable of knowing what is right and wrong and what is humanity and what is not”. He further observed that the accused had ample time between the period they underwent training in Pakistan and the day of the blasts to reform. “On the other hand, the meticulous planning, the synchronization of events and the exactness with which they successfully accomplished their mission shows their extreme culpability,” he observed. The judge supported Thakare who called the convicts “merchants of death” in his final arguments. Arriving at the decision to hand out five death sentences, Judge Shinde noted that the convicts were not “hardened criminals whose source of livelihood is crime” but “terrorists with a particular mindset” and followers of an ideology “adverse to the society and the democratically established government.” He justified calling the sentence rarest of rare, by terming it “unnatural and ridiculous” for the society to be a “silent spectator to this kind of depraved behaviour”.
