Ajmer blast case: Devendra Gupta, Bhavesh Patel awarded life imprisonment

Asia

A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Jaipur on Wednesday awarded life imprisonment to the two convicts in the 2007 ajmer Dargah bomb blast case.

The court awarded Devendra Gupta and Bhavesh Patel to life imprisonment while pronouncing the quantum of sentence in the case.

On March 8, the court had convicted Bhavesh Patel, Devendra Gupta and Sunil Joshi and acquitted others including Swami Aseemanand. Joshi died under mysterious circumstances soon after the bombing.

The conviction was made under Sections 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of IPC, 3 / 4 of Explosive Substances Act and Sections 16 and 18 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

The blast on October 11, 2007 in the Dargah of Khawaja Moinuddin Chisti at the time of Roza Iftaar had left three pilgrims dead and 15 injured.

The case was handed over to the Rajasthan ATS and was later transferred to the National Investigation Agency which re-registered the case with the NIA police station in New Delhi on 6 April 2011.

There were as many as 149 witnesses in the case and 451 documents were examined. The NIA filed three supplementary chargesheets in the case.

Source: TImesofindia