NEWS: India
AHMEDABAD BOMBINGS 2008
Court sentences 38 people to death for their role.

Fifty-sev­en peo­ple were killed and hun­dreds injured in the bomb­ings in Ahmed­abad, the com­mer­cial cap­i­tal of Gujarat.

The Ahmed­abad court also sen­tenced 11 oth­ers to life impris­on­ment until death.

The accused can chal­lenge the sen­tence in a high­er court.

On July 26, 2008, about 20 bombs explod­ed with­in an hour in res­i­den­tial areas, mar­kets, pub­lic trans­port and hos­pi­tals in Ahmed­abad. Sev­er­al unex­plod­ed bombs were also found.

The Indi­an Mujahideen — then an unknown Islamist mil­i­tant group — claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for the attacks in an e‑mail sent to some media outlets.

The Indi­an gov­ern­ment declared the group a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion and banned it in 2010 after it was accused of attack­ing a Ger­man bak­ery in Pune in which 17 peo­ple were killed and dozens injured.

In the Ahmed­abad blasts, 78 peo­ple were tried — one of the accused, Ayaz Saiyed, lat­er helped the inves­ti­gat­ing agencies.

The pros­e­cu­tion ques­tioned 1,163 wit­ness­es dur­ing the tri­al, accord­ing to The Indi­an Express.

Spe­cial Judge AR Patel also ordered com­pen­sa­tion of 100,000 rupees ( $1,337) each to the vic­tims’ families.

In 2013, author­i­ties had said they foiled an attempt by some of the accused to break out of jail.