Farooq Takla, a key accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts, has been convicted of passport forgery by a Mumbai court. On May 4, 2025, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate R.D. Chavan sentenced him to five years of rigorous imprisonment for traveling to India in 2018 using a forged passport under the alias Mustaq Mohammed Miya .

Takla, whose real name is Mohammed Farooq Yasin Mansoor, had been absconding since 1995 and was extradited from the UAE in 2018. He obtained a fraudulent Indian passport in 2001 and renewed it in 2011, both times using the false identity . The court found that he failed to provide any valid documentation under his real name during his travels .

Although Takla has already served over five years in custody as an undertrial, which covers the duration of his sentence for the passport forgery, he will remain in jail due to the ongoing trial related to the 1993 blasts under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) .

The conviction was based on forensic evidence, including handwriting analysis and testimonies from witnesses such as an immigration officer at Delhi airport. The court noted that Takla had used someone else’s identity to obtain and renew the passport, affixing his own photograph and signature while knowing he was not the person named on the documents .

Sources