Read Time: 04 minutes

A Special Court in Gujarat on friday concluded the hearing that pertained to the quantum of sentence for the 49 convicts in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial bomb blast case.

The bench of Special Judge AR Patel has sentenced 38 out of 49 accused to death and the remaining 11 convicts have been given life imprisonment.

While pronouncing the judgement, the Special Judge AR Patel awarded a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to those who had died in the blasts.

He also awarded a compensation of Rs 50,000 for victims with serious injury and Rs 25,000 for those with minor injury.

One accused, Usman Agarbattiwala, the only one convicted under the Arms Act and among those sentenced to death, has been additionally awarded one year of imprisonment for conviction under the Arms Act.

The sentences have been awarded to each of the 49 convicts under various sections of the IPC, UAPA, Explosive Substances Act and Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act. All of these will run concurrently. They were convicted under sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 121 (a) (conspiracy to wage war or attempt to wage war against the nation) and 124 (a) (sedition) among others of the IPC, and 16(1)(a)(b) of the UAPA related to punishment for a terrorist act.

The special court had last week convicted 49 people and acquitted 28 others.

Background -

As many as 22 bombs went off in Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008, at various spots, including the state government-run civil hospital, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation-run LG Hospital, on buses, parked bicycles, in cars and other places, killing 56 persons and leaving around 200 injured.

The police had claimed people associated with the terror outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM), a faction of radicals of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), were involved in the blasts.

It was alleged that the IM terrorists had planned these blasts to avenge the 2002 post-Godhra riots in which several persons from the minority community had died.

Days after the serial blasts in Ahmedabad, the police had recovered bombs from different parts of Surat, following which 20 FIRs were registered in Ahmedabad and 15 in Surat. The trial was conducted after the court merged all 35 FIRs.

[with inputs from news sources]