Over a week after 49 people were convicted for their role in the Ahmedabad serial blasts of 2008 that killed 56 people, a sessions court in Ahmedabad on Friday sentenced 38 of them to death.
The remaining 11 convicts have been given life imprisonment. The court of special judge A.R. Patel had delivered its verdict on February 8. Twenty-eight people were acquitted in the case.
Statements of over 1,100 witnesses were taken in the case. The accused had been lodged in various jails in the country.
The trial began in December 2009 against 78 people connected to the banned terror outfit Indian Mujahideen. The number of accused later came down to 77, after one of them turned approver.
Fifty-six people were killed and over 200 injured in 21 synchronised blasts that rocked the Gujarat city in a span of 20 minutes on July 26, 2008.
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Indian Mujahideen had claimed responsibility for the blasts and had termed it as a reprisal for the 2002 riots.
More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, had lost their lives in Gujarat in the riots of 2002 that erupted after 59 Kar Sevaks, returning from Ayodhya, were burnt alive on board the Sabarmati Express in Godhra.
(With inputs from Nandini Oza)
