As the special court in Gujarat pronounce the verdict of the Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts, all are curious to know what really happened. Long 24 years are over after the incident, however, the pathetic fact is that judiciary in India took those long years to do justice for the victims.
Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts Series
2008 Ahmedabad bombings were a series of 21 bomb blasts that hit Ahmedabad, India, on 26 July 2008, within a span of 70 minutes. Fifty-six people were killed and over 200 people were injured.
The blasts were considered to be of low intensity and were similar to the Bangalore blasts, Karnataka which occurred the day before.
Modus Operandi
The bombs were planted in Tiffin carriers on bicycles, a pattern similar to the 13 May 2008 Jaipur bombings. Many of the blasts targeted the city bus service of AMTS (Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service), ripping apart portions of the vehicles.
Two blasts took place inside the premises of two hospitals, about 40 minutes after the initial series of blasts. One of the blasts in the hospitals occurred when injured victims of the initial series of blasts were being admitted there.
Another bomb was found and defused on the following day in the Hatkeshwar area. Two live bombs were also retrieved from Maninagar, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency.
Gujarat police recovered and defused two more bombs in Surat, another major city in Gujarat, a day after the Ahmedabad blasts. Two cars filled with materials required to make explosives, including detonators, were also found, one of them parked on a roadside near a hospital, and the other in the outskirts of Surat.
Several TV channels said they had received an e-mail from a terror outfit called Indian Mujahideen claiming responsibility for the terror attacks; Islamic militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, however, has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The Verdict
Ahmedabad Special Court Judge AR Patel passed the verdict on July 26, 2008, after a 13 – year trial in a series of 21 blasts in Ahmedabad. Of the 49 convicted in the case, 38 were sentenced to death. Of these, Shibili, Shaduli and Sharafaddin are Malayalees. They were convicted of participating in terrorist training camps in Vagamon and Panaikulam.
In what is referred to as one of the lengthiest trials in the history of the Indian judiciary, a special court in Ahmedabad on Friday pronounced death sentence to 38 out of 49 convicts in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial bomb blast case.
The court while acquitted 28 people connected with the incident, have also given life imprisonment until death to 11 others. More than 13 years after the first arrest was made, the special court had on February 8 held 49 people guilty of carrying out a terror strike in Ahmedabad.
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