A special NIA court in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh awarded death sentence to seven ISIS operatives while one accused was awarded lifer in the Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train blast case of year 2017.
Nine people were seriously injured in the blast.
The court awarded death sentence to Mohd. Faisal, Gaus Mohd. Khan, Mohd. Azhar, Atiq Muzaffer, Mohd. Danish, Mohd. Sayyed Meer Hussain and Asif Iqbal alias Rokey. Mohd Atif alias Asif Irani was given lifer.
Judge V S Tripathi observed the case fell in the rarest of rare category and as such the convicts were entitled to the severest punishment.
The court had convicted the accused on February 24 and fixed Tuesday for pronouncement of its verdict. The court found the accused are guilty under sections 121, 121A, 122, 123 of IPC, sections 17, 18, 18A, 18B, 23, 38 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and 3/25/35 of the Arms Act.
An FIR in the case was registered with ATS police station in Lucknow on March 8, 2017. The ATS had received information that members of banned terror outfit ISIS were planning to conduct blasts at different places in the country, as per special public prosecutors M K Singh and K K Sharma,.
The ATS’ Kanpur unit first arrested Mohd Faisal and later on other accused were nabbed. The state counsel said that the accused had conducted a test blast at Ganga Ghat in Unnao.
One more accused Saifullah was named in the case but he was killed in an encounter.
