Varanasi serial blasts: Lucknow court awards life term to terror accused

A court in Lucknow on Thursday awarded life imprisonment to Mohammad Waliullah in connection with the 2006 serial blasts in Varanasi.

He was sentenced for being in possession of RDX, a detonator and a pistol.

Special judge of National Investigation Agency court VS Tripathi also imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 on him.

In his order, the judge said that Waliullah was already sentenced to death in the Sankat Mochan bomb blast case which showed that he was a dreaded culprit and hence was entitled to the maximum punishment provided in the current case.

Waliullah's counsel sought a lesser sentence pleading that he has already spent 17 years in jail and he has a mother, wife, son and a daughter to look after.

Opposing the plea, state counsel said that Waliullah was a dreaded criminal and that had he been not arrested in Lucknow, he would have succeeded in executing blasts in the city.

According to state counsel MK Singh, Waliullah, a resident of Phoolpur in Prayagraj, was arrested by the Varanasi police in the state capital on June 5, 2006.

At the time of the arrest, Waliullah had 500 gms of RDX, a detonator and a foreign pistol and cartridges. Later, he was booked in the Sankat Mochan bomb blast case. He was awarded capital punishment by a Ghaziabad court on June 6, 2022.

At least 18 people were killed and over 100 wounded in the twin blasts at the Sankat Mochan temple and Varanasi Cantonment railway station within 15 minutes on March 7, 2006.