A special court on Friday, 18 February, pronounced death sentence to 38 out of the 49 convicts in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case, reported news agency ANI. The 11 other convicts have been awarded life imprisonment, the report said.
Pronouncing the quantum of punishment to the convicts in the case on Friday, Special Judge AR Patel announced a compensation of Rs 1 lakh for the families of those who were killed in the blasts, The Indian Express reported.
A series of 21 blasts had rocked Ahmedabad in a span of 70 minutes on 26 July 2008.
A total of 49 persons accused in the blasts, which killed 56 people and injured over 200, had been convicted by a special court on Tuesday, 8 February. The court had acquitted 28 other accused involved in the case.
While Safdar Nagori, Atikur Rehman, Javed Ahmed, and Zahid Qutbuddin Shaikh are among those who were convicted, those who were acquitted include Shakeel Ahmed, Mohammad Irfan, Nasir Ahmad, and Salim Jamalbhai Sipai.
Background
The trial in the case had begun in December 2009 against 78 persons affiliated to Indian Mujahideen (IM), a banned terror outfit. Subsequently, after an accused turned approver, the total number of accused in the case went down to 77. People attached with the IM, a group of radicals of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), the police claimed, were involved in the blasts.
IM terrorists had allegedly carried out the blasts as a counter-attack for the 2002 post-Godhra riots, during which several people from the Muslim community had died.
(With inputs from ANI and The Indian Express.)
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