The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday upheld a special court verdict sentencing 38 operatives of the terror outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM) to death and 11 others to life imprisonment in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case, which killed 56 people and injured more than 200.
The division bench of Justices A Y Kogje and Samir Dave dismissed all appeals filed by the convicts and confirmed the February 2022 judgment of the special court. The state government had also sought confirmation of the death sentences.
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The court directed the Gujarat government to pay compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the families of those killed in the blasts and Rs 5 lakh to those grievously injured by March 30, 2027.
Among those convicted is Safdar Nagori, former chief of the banned Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), along with his associates.
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On July 26, 2008, 21 serial bomb blasts struck different parts of Ahmedabad within 70 minutes, killing 56 people and leaving over 200 injured. Hospitals treating blast victims were also targeted in a second wave of explosions, marking the first such attack on medical facilities in India. Investigators also recovered unexploded bombs from Surat.
The trial was conducted after clubbing 35 cases, including 20 FIRs related to the Ahmedabad blasts and 15 linked to unexploded bombs found in Surat. Of the 78 accused put on trial, 49 were convicted by the special court in February 2022, while 29 were acquitted.
The special court sentenced 38 convicts to death and awarded life imprisonment to 11 others. The convicts, including Nagori, belonged to multiple states such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.
Special Public Prosecutor Amit Patel said the state had presented all evidence before the High Court. The matter was heard over more than one-and-a-half years, with day-to-day hearings beginning in February this year.
The February 2022 verdict was the first instance of an Indian court awarding the death penalty to 38 convicts in a single case. Earlier, a TADA court in Tamil Nadu had sentenced 26 convicts to death in January 1998 in the assassination case of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
