Mumbai: Denying media reports that the accused in Best Bakery case are facing threat from the underworld, authorities at the Arthur Road Jail, where the 17 accused have been lodged, said all of them are safe.

"The accused are safe as they have been always kept in a barrack that is separate from cells where other inmates are kept in the Arthur Road jail in central Mumbai," Maharashtra DIG (Prisons) Rashmi Shukla told sources in Mumbai.

"They (accused) are kept in entirely different barracks from the underworld element and they have always been kept in a high security zone," Shukla said.

According to media reports, underworld gangster Dawood Ibrahim had conspired to kill the 17 accused in the carnage in order to take revenge for those killed in the Best Bakery two years ago.

The reports said that a 1993 Mumbai blast accused belonging to the Dawood gang had planned to poison their food after befriending them but the plan was foiled and the accused were moved to a high security zone.

"There is no chance of the accused coming in contact with the underworld people and there is not an iota of truth in the reports," Shukla added.