A special court in India's western city of Mumbai (Bombay) is expected to deliver verdicts over serial bomb blasts that rocked the city in 1993. The verdicts were to have been delivered last month but were deferred.

A total of 123 defendants are accused of involvement in a series of bombings in India's financial capital, killing 257 people and wounding 713.

The verdicts should bring an end to one of India's longest running trials, but the main accused has not been caught.

Blockbuster

Dawood Ibrahim is now believed to be living outside India and is accused of being the mastermind of the plot.

Bollywood star, Sanjay Dutt, is among the accused.The BBC's Zubair Ahmed in Mumbai says that Mr Dutt's recent blockbuster, depicting the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence, has won him nationwide praise.

He was arrested 13 years ago on terrorism charges and spent nearly two years in jail before the Supreme Court released him on bail.

Our correspondent say that there have been few trials to match it in legal history.

It has taken more than a decade, with evidence from more than 600 witnesses.

The bombings are believed to have been carried out by one of the city's notorious underworld crime syndicates, which were then dominated by Muslims.

Their motive is said to have been to avenge the deaths of Muslims killed in religious rioting in the city during the preceding months. Most of the accused men have been languishing in jail for the last 13 years.

Lawyers have criticised the length of the trial. The case has taken so long that 12 of the accused have died, and others have been imprisoned for so much longer than their likely sentence that a guilty verdict may still result in them walking free.

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