A special court in Gujarat sentenced 38 people to death and 11 others to life in prison on Friday for a series of bombings in Ahmedabad 14 years ago that killed 56 people and injured 200 more. According to legal experts, this is the first time an Indian court has handed down the death penalty to so many convicts at once.
The 49 defendants, including former SIMI chief Safdar Nagori, were sentenced for a series of 21 blasts that ripped through the city over the course of 70 minutes on July 26, 2008.
According to public prosecutor Amit Patel, judge AR Patel stated in the 7,000-page judgement that this was the rarest of rare cases.
The entire record of the proceedings will now be sent to the Gujarat high court for confirmation of the death sentences, according to Section 368 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the court said in its 59-page order on Friday. All of the defendants will remain in custody until the high court rules on the case, according to the order.
On February 8, the court found 49 of the 77 defendants guilty, while acquitting 28 others.
According to the public prosecutor, 38 people were convicted under sections 302 (murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), as well as provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Eleven others, he said, were found guilty of criminal conspiracy and violating various sections of the UAPA. The court fined 48 convicts a total of 2.855 lakh rupees and another a total of 2.88 lakh rupees.
The court also awarded 1 lakh in compensation to the families of those killed in the explosions, 50,000 to those seriously injured, and 25,000 to those who suffered minor injuries.
The victims’ families claimed that justice had finally been served. “In the terror attack, I lost my son.” Many people, including myself, have lost loved ones on this fateful day. In the last 14 years, we’ve been through a lot. Daxaben Modi, the 64-year-old mother of 18-year-old Ankit Modi, who died in the Ahmedabad blasts, said, “Today, I can sleep in peace.”
According to a government lawyer, this was the first time in independent India’s history that so many convicts were sentenced to death. A Tamil Nadu Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act court sentenced 26 people to death in 1998 for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. “In one case (the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi), 26 people were sentenced to death. “However, the number in this case is 38,” said public prosecutor Amit Patel.
The convicts were all video-conferenced in from different jails in Ahmedabad, Delhi, Bhopal, Gaya, Bengaluru, Kerala, and Mumbai for the hearing.
The entire record of the proceedings will now be sent to the Gujarat high court for confirmation of the death sentences, as per Section 368 of the CrPC. All of the defendants will remain in custody until the case is decided by the high court.
Bombs exploded in Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008, killing 56 people at the state government-run civil hospital, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation-run LG Hospital, on buses, parked bicycles, in cars, and other locations.
In the following days, another 29 live bombs were discovered in Surat, but none of them exploded.
Explosive devices hidden in lunch boxes and bicycles were used in two waves of attacks. The first explosion occurred near busy shopping malls in Ahmedabad, and the second occurred in and around hospitals where the victims were being treated.
Then-Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi announced a compensation of 5 lakh rupees for the victims’ families, and then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a compensation of 1 lakh rupees.
Gujarat Police discovered a nationwide network of radical elements involved in the blasts during their investigation. The attack was planned as retaliation for the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat, which killed 1,000 people, many of them Muslims, according to the police.
The investigation was transferred to the Ahmedabad crime branch by the state government, which was overseen by then-joint commissioner of police Ashish Bhatia, who is now the Gujarat director general of police.
It was a watershed moment in the case, according to Bhatia. “With this judgement, the court has set a strict precedent,” Gujarat BJP chief CR Paatil said.
The trial started in December 2009 and ended in September of the following year. In Ahmedabad, the court merged 20 First Information Reports (FIR) and 15 in Surat. At least 1,100 witnesses were questioned by the prosecution, with 26 being designated as star witnesses whose identities were kept hidden for their safety.
The case was presided over by nine different judges. AR Patel, the judge who handed down the decision, began hearing the case on June 14, 2017.
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