Trial of the attacks of Ahmedabad in India: 38 death sentences handed down

Prosecutors AR Patel (center, left) and Sudhir Brahmbhatt (ai center, right) speak to the media on February 18, 2022 outside the court that tried the Ahmedabad bombings.

AFP - SAM PANTHAKY

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

In India, a special court sentenced 38 people to the death penalty for their responsibility in a series of attacks that occurred in 2008 in the city of Ahmedabad, located in northwestern India.

Attacks claimed by an Indian Islamist group.

One of the harshest verdicts in Indian history.

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From our correspondent in New Delhi,

It was 6:45 p.m. on July 26, 2008, when the first explosion sounded in the city of Ahmedabad, the economic capital of Gujarat.

Then it's the deadly sequence: in barely an hour, 21 bombs explode, in 14 places in the city.

Fifty-six people are killed and 200 others are injured.

Two Islamist groups, certainly linked, claim responsibility for the attack: the Pakistani organization Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami and the Indian Mujahideen.

The latter presents these attacks as revenge following the anti-Muslim pogroms of 2002, which took place in this same city and cost the lives of around 2,000 people.

In all, 49 people have therefore been sentenced: eleven to life imprisonment and 38 to the death penalty.

According to defense lawyers, this is the first time in Indian history that so many people have been sentenced to death in the same trial.

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