Two men guilty of Mumbai blasts

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A court in India's western city of Mumbai (Bombay) has found two men guilty of planting one of the bombs in serial attacks in the city in 1993.

Asgar Mukadam and Shahnawaz Qureshi drove a van carrying explosives to a cinema. The blast killed 10 people.

The two men are among 123 defendants facing trial over 12 blasts that killed 257 people.

The attacks were allegedly ordered by the Muslim-dominated underworld in retaliation for Hindu-Muslim riots.

Mukadam had been charged on 14 counts, and Qureshi charged on 12 counts. The two men were convicted for driving a van laden with plastic explosives to the Plaza cinema in the western suburb of Dadar.

The explosion killed 10 and wounded 37 others.

Seven people have been convicted so far in connection with the blasts.

Hundreds of witnesses

Verdicts are being announced in stages over the next few weeks and sentences have yet to be passed.

1993 MUMBAI BLASTS 12 blasts257 dead713 injured123 arrested and tried686 witnesses testify35,000 pages of evidence submitted13 years to reach verdict <a href="/1/hi/world/south_asia/4775531.stm" class="">Profile: Fugitive gangster </a>

The man thought to have masterminded of the plot, underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, has still not been caught.

India says he and another key suspect, Tiger Memon, are hiding in Pakistan, a charge Pakistan has denied.

Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt is also among the accused.

Dutt was arrested 13 years ago on terrorism charges and spent nearly two years in jail before the Supreme Court ordered his release on bail.

The BBC's Zubair Ahmed in Mumbai says there have been few trials in India's legal history to match this one.

Evidence has been taken from more than 600 witnesses.

The bombings are believed to have been carried out by one of the city's notorious underworld crime syndicates, which were then dominated by Muslims.

Their motive is said to have been revenge for religious riots that left more than 2,000 people dead across India, most of them Muslims.

Most of the accused have been languishing in jail for the past 13 years. Lawyers have criticised the length of the trial.

The case has taken so long that 12 of the accused have died and others have been imprisoned for so much longer than their likely sentence that a guilty verdict may still result in them walking free.