Ahmedabad serial blasts was attack on India's sovereignty, says HC in judgement

Ahmedabad, Jul 14 (PTI) The 2008 Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts was "an attack on the sovereignty of India" and its ultimate objective was to topple a democratically elected government, the Gujarat High Court has said in its judgement. A division bench of Justices A Y Kogje and Samir Dave on July 7 upheld the death sentence of 38 Indian Mujahideen (IM) operatives and life sentence of 11 others in the case. The full 2,223-page judgment became available on Monday. The case belonged to the "rarest of the rare" category, and not handing down appropriate sentences or looking for small excuses to avoid sentencing will amount to miscarriage of justice, the HC said. "There is no doubt in the mind of the court that such a consorted attack is an attack on the sovereignty of India with the ultimate objective, as is even reflected from evidence of witnesses, to topple the democratically elected government," it said. The high court noted that 56 persons died in the blasts and 240 others were injured. Citing the case of Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani terrorist arrested during the 2008 Mumbai terror attack whose death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court on the ground that it was a "very rarest of the rare case," the court said the present case fell in the same category. The number of deaths, the "humongous nature of conspiracy", the intention "to create an atmosphere of widespread terror in the society", the conduct of the convicts during trial, the scale of the conspiracy, and the loss of innocent lives in the "inhuman and dastardly act" justified the capital punishment, the HC said. "The manner in which the bomb blasts were executed speaks volumes about the mindset and the remorseless act of taking away the lives of innocent people," the high court observed. It also noted that some of the convicts had criminal antecedents and none showed remorse. Disciplinary action had been taken against them during their incarceration, and there was nothing on record to justify taking a lenient view while sentencing them, the HC said. On July 26, 2008, a series of 21 bomb blasts ripped through Ahmedabad in a span of 70 minutes, killing 56 persons and leaving more than 200 injured. Blasts also took place in hospitals when victims from other places were being rushed in, marking the first time hospitals were targeted in such an attack. The blasts in predominantly Hindu/Non-Muslim areas sought to "strike to the root of an orderly society envisioned under our Constitution, and (were) therefore an act of terrorism," the division bench said. While awarding compensation to the victims, the court noted that the government did not ask them whether they wanted to be represented by lawyers provided under legal aid. There is a trend in vogue "of clever defence arguments and misplaced sympathies" to drive the court to think only about the accused, and not the large number of victims who remain hidden and are never visible, it said. The high court directed the state government to pay compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the kin of those killed, and Rs 5 lakh to those who were grievously injured. The conduct of the accused demonstrated their "headstrongness," the high court said, pointing out that they dug a 213 feet tunnel while lodged at the Sabarmati Central Jail and would have managed to escape had it not been detected in time. The court also mentioned doctor couple Prerak Shah and his wife Kinjal Shah who were killed while on duty when a bomb went off at the civil hospital, and noted that "the accused cannot escape by maintaining that they were not aware or planned for such catastrophic effect which would warrant nothing less than a capital punishment." Almost all the accused sentenced to death or life imprisonment had serious criminal antecedents, the court noted. As to the 11 convicts whose life sentence was upheld, the HC observed that the prosecution established the role played by some of them in participating in terror training camps in Gujarat and Kerala, and the involvement of others in purchasing a scooter, plastic containers, clock and making arrangements to shelter other accused. Of the 78 persons who went on trial, 49 were convicted in February 2022. The trial was conducted after merging 20 FIRs lodged in Ahmedabad for 21 blasts and 15 FIRs lodged in Surat where planted bombs failed to go off. A special court in February 2022 sentenced 38 IM members to death and 11 others to life imprisonment. Among them were former SIMI leader Safdar Nagori and his associates from 11 states including Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh. This was the first time that such a large number of convicts were handed the death sentence by any court in one go. In January 1998, a TADA court in Tamil Nadu had sentenced to death all 26 convicts in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. PTI KA PD GK KRK