A special court hearing the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case last week sentenced 38 convicts to death and 11 to life imprisonment. While delivering the capital punishment, which will be subject to confirmation of the Gujarat High Court, the court deemed the offence of the convicts as “rarest of the rare”. This is for the first time that such a large number of convicts have been handed death sentences by any court at one go. In January 1998, a TADA court in Tamil Nadu had awarded capital punishment to all the 26 convicts in the case of assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
On February 8, the special court of A R Patel had convicted 49 persons and acquitted 28 others. As many as 21 explosions had ripped through Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008, within a span of 70 minutes and claimed 56 lives and left over 200 injured. The court decreed the sentence after the prosecution lawyers HM Dhruv, Amit Patel and Sudhir Brahmbhatt proved the case based upon the circumstantial evidence.
“These 38 persons were convicted under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 302 (murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) and provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Eleven others were held guilty for criminal conspiracy and under various sections of the UAPA,” said prosecutors.
The court imposed a fine of Rs 285,000 on 48 convicts and Rs 288,000on another one. It also awarded compensation of Rs 100,000 to the kin of those who died in the blasts, Rs 50,000 to those who were seriously injured and Rs 25,000 to those who received minor injuries.
Those awarded death sentences include key conspirators in the case - Madhya Pradesh natives Safdar Nagori and Qumaruddin Nagori, Qayumuddin Kapadiya, Zahid Shaikh and Shamsuddin Sheikh. Both Safdar Nagori and Zahid Shaikh were accused of collecting funds for acquiring explosives and for other illegal activities of banned outfit Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).
Kapadiya had acquired mobile SIM cards using fake identity documents and stayed in hotels using fake identity. All the convicts were present for the hearing via video-conference from eight different jails - Sabarmati central jail in Ahmedabad, Tihar in Delhi, Bhopal, Gaya, Bengaluru, Kerala and Mumbai. The court had concluded the trial against 77 accused in the case in September last year. Out of 78 accused on trial, one had turned approver. 20 cases registered in Ahmedabad’s different police stations and 15 at Surat police stations were clubbed together for the trial.
