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Ahmedabad High court has sentenced 38 people to death for their role in a series of bomb blasts in 2008 in Gujarat. Fifty-seven people were killed and hundreds injured in the bombings, which took place in Ahmadabad. The court in Ahmadabad also sentenced 11 other convicts to life in prison until death.
The convictions, handed down at a special court, were in connection to a terrorist attack in July 2008 in Ahmedabad, in the state of Gujarat, when as many as 20 bombs were set off across the city, including at several hospitals, in parks and on buses, killing 56 people and injuring more than 200.
The attacks occurred in two waves, with explosive devices hidden in lunchboxes and bicycles. The first was near crowded busy shopping centres in Ahmedabad, and the second about 20 minutes later, in and around hospitals where casualties were being taken and people had gathered to give blood to the victims. At the Civil hospital, 37 people lost their lives when a car laden with explosives drove into the compound.
A previously unknown Islamist terror organisation, the Indian Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the attack but Gujarat police said a nationwide network of radical Islamist groups were involved in the blasts. The Indian Mujahadeen is believed to be a faction of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (Simi), a group of young extremists who had declared jihad against India. Among those given death sentences on Friday was Safdar Nagori, the former Simi leader.