Ahmedabad Blasts: 49 convicted, 28 acquitted

Ahmedabad: A special court convicted 49 accused in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case in a judgement delivered on Tuesday via video conferencing to the accused in their jail cells. 28 other accused were acquitted. The operative part of the judgement has not yet been released.

The order was pronounced in-camera by special judge A R Patel, as the accused were restricted in movement under section 268 of the CrPC where undertrials are confined to their prison cells.

The accused have been convicted under section 302 (murder), 120(B) (conspiracy), 307 (attempt to murder), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 326 (causing grievous hurt) of the Indian Penal Code, and sections 10, 13, 16 and 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

The serial blasts which took place in Gujarat in 2008 killed 56 people and injured over 200 as 21 bombs exploded across the city of Ahmedabad, including blasts inside two government hospitals. A total of 6,000 pieces of evidence and over 1,000 witnesses were produced by the prosecution in the course of the case.

Police had alleged that the perpetrators were members of the Indian Mujahideen (IM), a faction of radicals of the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). The attacks were conducted in revenge for the Godhra riots which took place in 2002 and where many members of the Muslim community were targeted and killed.

Some of the accused were also blamed for serial bomb blasts in Jaipur, Bhopal, Indore, Belgaum, Alipore, 24 Paraganas, South, Kolkata, Ujjain, greater Bombay, Mangalore, Nampally (Hyderabad) in Andhra Pradesh, New Delhi, and Rajgadh in Madhya Pradesh

Days after the serial blasts in Ahmedabad, the police had recovered bombs from different parts of Surat. Following the recovery, 20 FIRs were registered in Ahmedabad and 15 in Surat. The trial was conducted after the court merged all 35 FIRs into one. The trial commenced against 78 accused and the number came down to 77 after one of them turned an approver.