Bakery case:HC hearing on death penalty confirmation next week

The Bombay High Court will from August 12 commence hearing into the confirmation of death penalty awarded to Himayat Mirza Baig in the 2010 German Bakery blast in Pune.
A division bench of Justices V K Tahilramani and Mridula Bhatkar today said it would start final hearing into the confirmation petition and the appeal filed by Himayat against his conviction, from Monday.
Himayat was today produced before the bench amid heavy security by Quick Response Team (QRT) guards and policemen.
The court will on Monday decide if the convict needs to be produced before it every time the matter is heard or if he can be produced via video conference link from jail.

On February 13, 2010, a bomb exploded inside the bakery killing 17 persons including five foreigners and injuring 58 others.
In April this year, the sessions court in Pune had awarded death penalty to Baig observing that it was a rarest of rare case.

Baig was convicted under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and Explosives Act.
According to the chargesheet filed by the ATS, five others accused - Fayyaz Kagzi, Yasin Bhatkal, Iqbal Bhatkal, Riyaz Bhatkal and Mohsin Chaudhari - are still absconding.
During the final hearing, the court is also likely to consider an application filed by NIA, which took over the blast case at a later stage, seeking a direction to the ATS to provide them a copy of the CCTV footage from inside the bakery to ascertain the identity of the person who planted the bomb.

The court had last week refused to pass an order directing the ATS to submit the CCTV footage and said it would consider the application at a later stage during final hearing.