38 get death penalty, 11 life term for 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts

Tribune News Service

New Delhi/Ahmedabad, February 18

Fourteen years after 56 persons were killed and over 200 injured in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts, a Special Court on Friday awarded death penalty to 38 convicts and sentenced 11 others to life imprisonment.

Special Judge AR Patel, who had convicted 49 persons and acquitted 28 others in the case on February 8, termed it as “the rarest of rare” case against the 38 convicts given capital punishment. Those awarded life imprisonment have to spend the rest of their life in jail.

Delivering a 7,015-page verdict, the Special Judge also imposed a fine of Rs 2.85 lakh on 48 convicts and Rs 2.88 lakh on one of them.

The court awarded compensation of Rs 1 lakh to the families of those killed in the blasts, Rs 50,000 to those seriously injured and Rs 25,000 to those who received minor injuries.

This is for the first time that such a large number of convicts have been given death sentence by any court in a case. In January 1998, a TADA court in Tamil Nadu had awarded death penalty to all 26 convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

Twenty-one simultaneous blasts had rocked Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008, in a span of 70 minutes, killing 56 persons and leaving over 200 injured.

The police had registered 20 FIRs in Ahmedabad and 15 FIRs in Surat, where several bombs were recovered. Later, both sets of cases were clubbed together for trial as the police said they were part of the same conspiracy by the Indian Mujahideen, a breakaway faction of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), a proscribed outfit. Those awarded death sentences included key conspirators — MP natives Safdar Nagori and Qumaruddin Nagori as well as Gujarat residents Qayumuddin Kapadiya, Zahid Shaikh and Shamsuddin Sheikh.

All convicts were present for the hearing via video-conference from eight different jails in Ahmedabad, Delhi, Bhopal, Gaya, Bengaluru, Kerala, and Mumbai.

The court had concluded the trial against 77 accused in September last year. Out of the 78 accused on trial, one had turned approver. The trial had commenced in December 2009 against 77 persons linked to the banned terror outfit Indian Mujahideen, which wanted to avenge the 2002 post-Godhra riots.

Four more accused were arrested later, but their trial has not commenced yet, a government lawyer said.

Convicts linked to Indian Mujahideen

• 21 blasts rocked Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008, killing 56
• 20 FIRs filed in Ahmedabad, 15 in Surat (where 29 live bombs were recovered)
• Trial began in Dec 2009 against 77 linked to Indian Mujahideen, which wanted to avenge 2002 Gujarat riots
• All convicts attended hearing via video link from 8 jails
• Rs1 lakh compensation awarded to victims’ families
• First time such a large number given death sentence in a case

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