Tahir Merchant (aka Tahir Taklya), who was convicted in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case, died at the state-run Sassoon Hospital, Pune in the wee hours of Wednesday. Merchant was lodged in Yerwada Central Jail, Pune. A close aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, Merchant was awarded with death sentence. He was arrested on June 8, 2010, for his role in the Mumbai serial blasts that claimed 257 lives on March 12, 1993. Merchant was convicted for conspiring, facilitating and knowingly commissioning acts of terror. "Convict Tahir Merchant was admitted in Sassoon hospital at about 3 am due to chest pain. He died in the hospital during treatment at around 3.45 am," said Additional Director General of Police (Prisons) Dr BK Upadhyay. The Supreme Court had stayed the death sentence of Merchant in December 2017. Merchant had attended the conspiracy meeting in Dubai and helped his associates to arrange men from Mumbai, who were sent to Pakistan for arms training. Merchant had also collected funds to procure arms. He had planned to set up an illegal arms manufacturing factory unit in India. Merchant, a close aide of Dawood and Tiger Memon, used to work as manager in a carpet shop at Sharjah in the UAE. He was arrested by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) following his deportation from Abu Dhabi in June 2010. The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) court in Mumbai had sentenced Merchant to death in the case on September 7, 2017, along with Feroz Rashid Khan. ABOUT TAHIR TAKLYA

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