Lucknow, January 23
A fast track court (FTC) today pronounced life imprisonment to five associates of Waliullah, the reported mastermind behind the March 7, 2006 Varanasi serial bomb blasts killing 20 persons.
The FTC court of additional sessions judge Dharmaraj Mishra today announced life terms for all five, who had been arrested along with Waliullah by the STF from Lucknow in April 2006. They have also been asked to pay a fine of Rs 40,000 each. Charges under various sections of the Arms Act have also been made
against them. The five are Mahboob Ali Mandal, Mohd Farhan, Sayed Shoib Hasan, Mohd Saad Ali, alias Shaad alias Babbloo and Rizwan Siddiqui. The case of Waliullah is being heard in a FTC of Ghaziabad.
While Mahboob hailed from Murshidabad (West Bengal), Farhan and Shoaib were natives of Lucknow. The other two accused Mohd Saad and Rizwan belonged to Jyotiba Phule Nagar in UP.
At least 20 persons were killed and another 100 injured when two bombs exploded in quick succession at the Sankat Mochan Mandir and the Cantonment Railway station at Varanasi on the evening of March 7, 2006.
The blasts were said to be the handiwork of Bangladesh militants, closely connected with Pakistan spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Wali-ul-lah, an Imam of a rural mosque in Phoolpur town of Allahabad district, was identified as the mastermind.
While he was picked up for questioning on March 26, 2006, he was formally booked later along with five others, who were tracked down to a house in Sarojini Nagar, Lucknow, on the basis of leads provided by him.
While admitting his involvement in the Varanasi twin blasts, the 32-year-old Imam told cops that the Varanasi blasts were carried out by three militants belonging to Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HuJI), a Bangladesh-based terrorist outfit, with which he was closely associated.
