Mumbai, Nov. 3: Although he wasn’t in court, Sanjay Dutt would have been taking a keen interest in the verdict delivered on three Bombay blasts accused today.

The anti-terror court convicted the three men of possessing weapons that were part of arms consignments smuggled into Mumbai by the March 1993 blasts conspirators.

Dutt (in picture) faces similar charges, although the circumstances and evidence in his case are different.

Judge Pramod Kode found Ashraf-ur Rehman Azimullah Shaikh (accused number 71), Mohammed Yunis Botomiya (number 47) and Asif Yusuf Shaikh (number 107) guilty of possessing weapons and ammunition from the cache offloaded at Dighi and Shekhadi villages on the Raigad coast.

Dutt is accused of possessing an AK-56 rifle that was part of the Dighi consignment, delivered in January 1993. The evidence against him hinges on the recovery of an 18-inch spring rod and a spring. The actor and four associates had made confessions to the police but retracted them in court.

The tally of convictions is now 61, while 19 have been acquitted. Among the rest of the accused are Dutt, senior customs officials Somnath Thapa and R.K. Singh, and alleged gangster Ejaz Pathan. The sentences will be announced after verdicts are delivered on all 123 accused.

Rehman, Botomiya and Shaikh were found guilty under the anti-terror and the arms acts, but acquitted of the conspiracy charge under the IPC.