Ahmedabad blasts: Convicts to move HC against special court verdict

Lawyers of 49 convicts, 38 of them sentenced to death and others to life-long imprisonment in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts case, on Friday said they will approach the Gujarat high court against a special court's verdict pronouncing them guilty.

According to defence lawyers, the special court should not have relied solely on circumstantial evidence and statements of some convicts while giving its judgment.

"The verdict was mainly based on circumstantial evidence, four statements given by the accused under section 164 of the CrPC and the statement of an approver. I believe that the court should have discarded such evidences.

"But since the verdict has come, it is natural that those who were convicted will approach the High Court against the verdict," said HM Sheikh, one of the defence lawyers.

"The judgment runs into over 7,000 pages and is yet to be made available to us. We will plan the future course of action after studying the judgment in the coming days," he said.

Khalid Shaikh, another defence lawyer, said the special court should have shown leniency as per principles laid down by the Supreme Court.

"We expected the court to show some leniency and award less harsher punishment. We will first study the verdict before taking a final decision on filing an appeal against it," said Khalid Shaikh.

Earlier in the day, the special court sentenced to death 38 members of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen in the case related to the serial blasts, which had claimed 56 lives and left over 200 injured.

The court also sentenced 11 other convicts to life imprisonment till death.

The court had convicted 49 persons and acquitted 28 others in the case on February 8. The pronouncement of the quantum of punishment by judge A R Patel came nearly 14 years after the bombings.

This is for the first time that so many convicts have been handed down death sentence by any court at one go.

In January 1998, a TADA court in Tamil Nadu sentenced to death all the 26 convicts in the case of assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.