Top Customs officer guilty

Former additional Customs collector Somath Thapa, the seniormost of the five Customs officers tried in the 1993 serial blasts case

Former additional Customs collector Somath Thapa, the seniormost of the five Customs officers tried in the 1993 serial blasts case, was today convicted for his complicity in allowing the landing of arms, ammunition and explosives on the Shekhadi coast, which were later used in the explosions planned by Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon and others.

All the five Customs officers have been convicted for facilitating the arms landings, but Thapa 59 is the only one also found guilty of conspiracy. The prosecution argued during the trial that Thapa had received an alert from then Collector of Customs SK Bharadwaj on January 24, 1993, about the planned landings in Shekhadi. Customs inspector LD Mhatre had also informed him that the main exit point for the smugglers would be the Mhasla-Shrivardhan area.

The prosecution said Thapa, instead, laid a trap at Purarphata on January 30. Despite warnings, his team called off their vigil on February 2. The arms and ammunition were smuggled in from February 3-7, 1993.

8220;8230;The confessions of other co-accused and oral evidence of the Collector and the inspector of Customs and prosecution witnesses 98 and 99 have been accepted8230;Thapa is found guilty on all counts,8217;8217; said Special Judge PD Kode. He was convicted under Section 120 B of the IPC criminal conspiracy and Section 33 of TADA aiding and abetting a terrorist act.

After the verdict Thapa gestured to his lawyer that he was surprised. He pleaded with the judge that he had lung cancer for the past two years and needed time to surrender. His lawyers argued he was scheduled to undergo chemotherapy. On humanitarian grounds, Judge Kode gave Thapa time till December 18 to surrender.

The AK-56

The first true assault rifle was the AK-47 Automat Kalashnikova, 1947, designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1947 and produced by the then USSR for extensive use in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. Its popularity led to several variants being developed in the USSR as well as in other countries. The AK-56 more correctly, the Chinese Type 56 Rifle was developed by the Chinese and is identified by the folding 8220;spike8221; bayonet attached to the barrel just aft of the muzzle. The AK-56 is somewhat of lower quality than other AK-47 variants.