Pakistan national Mohammad Hussain, who was earlier convicted and awarded death sentence for his alleged role in the 1997 Punjabi Bagh bomb blast case, will start his retrial case from Friday in a city court here after the Supreme Court set aside his capital punishment and ordered for a fresh trial.
Additional sessions judge Pawan Kumar Jain assigned advocate Rajesh Anand to defend alleged Pakistani terrorist Mohammad Hussain in the fresh trial and said this case will be taken up as a “zero tolerance” matter and no adjournment will allowed to anyone on any ground.
“Since the honourable Supreme Court directed to conclude the matter within three months, it is made clear to all concerned that this case will be a zero tolerance matter and no adjournment will be entertained on any ground whatsoever,” the judge said.
Earlier, the accused has submitted an application in the Supreme Court claiming that “he has no counsel and requests to appoint Amicus Curiae to defend the case.”
On September 1 this year, the Supreme Court set aside his conviction and capital punishment announced by the trial court after observing that the accused was denied the assistance of a lawyer during his trial in this case, thus an ordered was passed for a fresh trial in 1997 bomb blast where Hussain stands to be an accused. Mohammad Hussain was convicted and sentenced to death in November 2004 by the trial court for his role in the 1997 Delhi blast which occurred in a Blueline bus leaving four people dead and 24 injured.
On December 30, 1997, a bomb exploded at Rampura near Punjabi Bagh in West Delhi in a Blueline bus. The blast left 28 injured, of which four succumbed to injuries later in a hospital.
Hussain is a native of Jindrakhar village at Okara in Pakistan.