New Delhi: Five people out of the seven accused in the 1997 Delhi serial blasts and other blasts in North India, have been sentenced to 10 years in jail.
Two Pakistani Lashkar-e-Toiba militants and three others were sentenced by a Delhi court in connection with a series of bomb blasts that rocked various north Indian cities in 1997, killing 17 persons and injuring nearly 300 others.
"The serial blasts appear to be a concerted plan to cause maximum damage to the lives and property of the public. It was a direct threat to the normal functioning of the government and amounts to destabilising the society," said Additional Sessions Judge Rajiv Mehra.
Pakistanis Ajaz Mohammad and Mohammad Hussain were found guilty of conspiring to wage war against the country along with Aamir Khan, Mohammad Shakil and Abdul Baqi for planning 37 blasts in Delhi, Panipat, Sonepat, Ludhiana, Kanpur and Varanasi on different days in 1997.
They were also sentenced to five years each under Foreigners Act and Explosives Substances Act. Hussain got a three-year term under the Arms Act also. However, all the sentences will run concurrently.
Two other accused Mohd Umar Ali and Mohd Abdul Qasim were found guilty under the Explosives Act and were handed down a five-year sentence. But they walked free as their terms were set off against the seven years they already spent in custody since their arrest in 1998. The court convicted all the accused on Tuesday.
"The evidence on record confirm the case of the prosecution that the aim of the accused was to conspire to wage war and to overawe the government", the Judge said.
Hussain was given death sentence by a court in 2003 in connection with the blast in a bus at Punjabi Bagh on December 30, 1997, which killed four and injured 30 others.
(With Agency inputs)
Comments
0 comment