Ahmedabad: It was remorse at a later stage of the trial that prompted Ayaz Saiyed — an accused in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case — to turn approver and reveal to the court the conspiracy hatched by members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) to bomb the city.Saiyed’s testimony proved crucial in nailing the co-accused. A special court convicted 49 people in the case, sentencing 38 to death and 11 others to life imprisonment. Saiyed himself was pardoned by the court, though not before facing intense scrutiny from defence lawyers, who repeatedly questioned both his motives and the timing of his decision to depose for the prosecution.The serial blasts ripped through Ahmedabad on the evening of July 26, 2008, killing 56 people and injuring 246 others. Saiyed and 79 others were tried under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Explosives Act and provisions of IPC relating to murder, criminal conspiracy, terrorism, waging war against the nation and destruction of public property.Upholding the trial court’s verdict, the high court examined Saiyed’s evidence across 45 pages of its 2,223-page order.It said, “When he was questioned that why such need arose after 10 years, he has categorically answered that on account of remorse he had taken this step. He has also denied that he has got up the ground of remorse, but the real fact is that he wanted to escape the sentence. He has denied that he has wrongly deposed in examination-in-chief about seeing of video demonstration of bomb making, but has admitted that he has not mentioned about demonstration of video for bomb making in his confession.”Defence lawyers grilled Saiyed on every front, including an alleged rivalry with other accused over prize money awarded for completing a course. On this, the court said, “This line of questioning was directed towards the rivalry being the cause for giving deposition against co-accused. However, the answers provided by the accused do not indicate to the fact that such rivalry could have been the reason for the witness to wrongly implicate co-accused.”The defence also alleged that Saiyed had been lured into disclosing the conspiracy by policemen — two crime branch constables and an ATS head constable who, they claimed, would frequent Sabarmati jail. Saiyed denied any such inducement.He told the court that before moving his application on March 11, 2019, seeking permission to turn approver and be granted pardon, he had consulted neither a lawyer nor his co-accused. He did, however, admit that about a month before filing the plea, he had discussed the matter with co-accused Jahid Shaikh, Kayamuddin Kapadia and Mohammed Ismail alias Rajik.
