Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, September 11
Justice Ashutosh Kumar of Patna High Court on Wednesday gave relief to Imtiaz Ansari, Numan Ansari, Haider Ali and Moziullah Ansari and commuted their death sentences into life imprisonment.
The four were found guilty by the special NIA court in October 27, 2013 serial explosions at Gandhi Maidan here where the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi was addressing the Hoonkar rally. Six people were killed and 90 wounded in the explosions.
After examining 187 witnesses, lower court on November 2, 2021 had awarded death sentence to four, lifer to two, 10 years jail to two and 7 years jail to one. All the convicted were suspected to be members of the outlawed Indian Mujahideen.
Narendra Modi had visited the villages of the deceased three days later. While talking to this correspondent last Deepawali, he remembered the family of one of them and inquired about them. The young BJP worker was from Alawalpur village in Patna district, PM recalled the incident after 10 years and commented “bahut dukh hua, naujawan ka dehawsan ho gaya.”
The case was investigated by two IPS officers who were from Bihar and posted with the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Sanjeev Kumar Singh was IG and Vikash Vaibhav, SP. Anurag Tankha, then DIG, supervised the investigations.
