Calcutta, Aug. 30 :    Calcutta, Aug. 30:  After sitting for eight years, India's only surviving Tada court came close to winding itself up today when it pronounced Rashid Khan and five associates guilty of engineering the 1993 Bowbazar blast in which 69 died and 40 were maimed. Judge Pranab Kumar Deb will pronounce the sentence - either death or life-imprisonment - tomorrow and finally bring the curtains down on the court which outlasted all others in the country because of the Bowbazar case. The judge found Rashid and his henchmen - Abdul Aziz, Pannalal Jaiswal, Md Mustafa, Md Halim and Md Gulzar - guilty of causing the blast and conspiring against the nation and the interests of communal harmony. But he acquitted them of the charges of murder and damage to property for lack of 'direct evidence'. Investigations have revealed that the explosion, on the night of March 16, 1993 - four days after the Bombay serial blasts - at 267 Bepin Behari Ganguly Street, was triggered by a massive store of explosives. The impact was such that the three-storey building where the explosives were stored was blown up, three neighbouring buildings developed yawning cracks and the verandah of another building was shattered. Besides, the blast exposed the rot in the echelons of Calcutta police - the blown-up building was located about 300 yards from Lalbazar - and the various units of the CPM. The aftershocks of the blast continued to jolt the CPM. Senior leaders Lakshmi De - who was rehabilitated as late as in May 2001 when he fought and won the Assembly polls from Vidyasagar and was then made the Left Front chief whip in the House - and Shyamali Gupta, a party-nominated member of Jadavpur University's executive council, were hauled up. Investigations also revealed that several senior police officers were in regular touch with Rashid. Rashid, who was known as the sultan of satta, and his five associates were arrested a day after the blast for storing explosives, including RDX. But Parvez Khan and Imtiaz Khan, two others accused in the crime, still continue to elude the police. According to the probe team, Rashid had been storing the explosives in anticipation of a communal riot. The city had just recovered from the worst riot in recent history - on December 6, 1992, the day the Babri masjid was demolished - and Mumbai was still raw with the wounds of the riots and the serial explosions. The investigations had established Rashid's link with mafia don Dawood Ibrahim. Sixty-five people died on the spot and four died of wounds in hospital, making the blast the worst in the city's history. The case was transferred to the designated Tada court a few months after Rashid's arrest. Massive security arrangements were made in and around the city sessions court today when Rashid and the five others were brought there at noon. Their family members and friends broke down after hearing the conviction. Soon after the judgment, one of the accused, Md Mustafa, shouted out from his enclosure asking the judge to give him 'a minute'. Deb, about to leave the court, paused for some time before sitting down again. Mustafa said the hearing was incomplete as his case had not been heard yet. 'No lawyer has represented my case and the verdict, therefore, is infructuous,' he alleged. But the defence lawyer, asked by the judge about the merits of Mustafa's allegation, said he had argued on behalf of all six accused. Both parties said they would move the Supreme Court against the Tada court's verdict. Public prosecutors Ashok Bakshi and Naba Bose said they would challenge the judgment as the accused had been acquitted of the charges of murder and damage to property. Defence counsel Ganesh Maity said he would move the apex court challenging the verdict of the Tada court.