Ahmedabad, February 18: A special court in Gujarat on Friday awarded death sentence to 38 out of 49 convicts in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial bomb blast case. Eleven others have been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Earlier on February 8, a Gujarat court convicted 49 accused and acquitted 28 others in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial bomb blast case. Within a span of 70 minutes, as many as 21 bomb blasts had taken place in Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008.
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The terror attack had led to the death of 56 persons at various places in the city due to the bomb blasts and over 200 people were also injured.
The Islamic terror group, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, had claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Case details
At least 56 persons were killed and over 200 injured in 21 bomb blasts that rocked Ahmedabad city within a span of 70 minutes on July 26, 2008. The police had claimed people associated with banned terror outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM), a faction of radicals of the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), were involved in the blasts. It was alleged that Indian Mujahideen terrorists had planned and executed these blasts as a revenge for the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat, in which several persons from the minority community had died.
The police had recovered bombs from different parts of Surat. Following the recovery, 20 FIRs were registered in Ahmedabad and 15 in Surat. The trial was conducted after the court merged all 35 FIRs into one. The trial commenced against 78 accused and the number came down to 77 after one of them turned an approver.
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The special court initially heard the case from inside the Sabarmati Central Jail for security reasons. When the trial was underway, some of the accused had allegedly tried to escape by digging a 213 feet long tunnel in the jail in 2013.
-PTC News
