Church blast cases: court commutes death sentence of seven convicts

Though more than 35 people were charge-sheeted, 22 people, who were among those who faced trial, will have to undergo imprisonment for life.

Bangalore:  The High Court of Karnataka has commuted to life imprisonment the death penalty imposed on seven convicts in the 2000 serial church blast cases in Bengaluru, Karnataka.

While upholding conviction of all the 22 people belonging to the banned Deendar Anjuman organisation, who were convicted by a special court in 2008, the court said the acts of the seven convicts does not fall under the category of “rarest of rare cases” to warrant death penalty.

There was no loss of public life in the blasts and their intention was not to kill people, the court said.

Dismissing the appeals filed by all the convicts questioning their conviction and sentence, the court said the evidences clearly establish conspiracy with an intention of waging war against India as well as conspiring to overawe the government by means of criminal force.

A Division Bench comprising Justice N. Kumar and Justice Rathnakala, in its separate verdicts, termed that the convicts were not innocent persons falsely implicated in the case as many of them had gone to Mardan in Pakistan to get training in arms and ammunitions, including explosive substances.

Though more than 35 people were charge-sheeted, 22 people, who were among those who faced trial, will have to undergo imprisonment for life. Five persons, including Zia-Ul-Hassan, leader of Deendar Anjuman, and four others, are absconding in Pakistan; some accused died during trial and some were acquitted by the trial court.

“The aim of the convicts was to ‘Islamise’ the world and India. To achieve this, they wanted to create disharmony between Hindus and Christians by printing defamatory literature against each others. And they wanted to blast churches to make Christians believe that it was the work of Hindu …” the Bench pointed out.

“It is of utmost importance that a strong message is to be sent to all these misguided, evil minded elements in society and in particular, the youth of Muslim community to desist from indulging in any such anti-social activities lest the entire community gets a bad name,” the Bench observed while imposing life term on every convict.

Source: The Hindu