Reuters

Mumbai, Dec 5: Sentencing of 100 people convicted over a series of bombings in Mumbai in 1993 will begin at the end of January, the prosecutor said on Tuesday, a day after a judge announced the final verdicts in the case.

Thirteen blasts in the country's financial capital targetted the Bombay Stock Exchange building, a cinema hall, a market and other locations, and were the deadliest bomb attacks in India, killing 257 people.

On Monday, judge Pramod Kode found a final six men guilty in one of the world's longest running criminal cases, bringing the total convicted to 100, while 23 others were acquitted.

"The arguments for sentencing will begin on the 11th of December, and will go on for about 15 days. We are expecting the verdicts to be delivered at the end of January," said public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam.

Late last month, Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt was convicted for possession of illegal arms bought from gangsters accused of carrying out the bombings.

He faces a possible 10 years' jail, despite being cleared of a more serious charge of conspiracy.

Indian authorities say Dawood Ibrahim, a suspected Mumbai mafia don who they believe is now living in Pakistan, a charge denied by Islamabad, masterminded the attacks in retaliation for the destruction of a 16th-century mosque by Hindu zealots.

The demolition of the mosque triggered a wave of religious rioting across the country that left hundreds dead, many of them Muslims.

Others waiting to be sentenced are four members of the Memon family, relatives of Ibrahim Mushtaq "Tiger" Memon, a close associate of Dawood Ibrahim.

The trial, held in a court inside a prison complex for security reasons, began in 1994, but hearings began in earnest only the following year. Kode delivered his first verdicts in September.