A chilling reconstruction of a late-night meeting in January 1993 at fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s Dubai residence, which was anchored in the confessional statement of a now-deceased accused, became a key reference statement for the Special TADA Court in Jamnagar that on Monday convicted 12 individuals in a case related to the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai.

The meeting had set in motion a conspiracy to avenge the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition by unleashing coordinated terror on the “Hindu community” neighbourhoods in India, with a detailed plan to land RDX, automatic weapons and grenades on the Gujarat coast; the weapons were sourced from Pakistan, as per the 1994 confessional statement of Usmangani Noor Mohammad Merchant.…