A Ghaziabad court on Monday handed death sentence to terrorist Waliullah Khan in the 2006 Varanasi blast case. On Saturday, District Sessions Judge Jitendra Kumar Sinha held Waliullah Khan guilty in two cases, which were lodged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections of murder, attempt to murder and mutilation, and acquitted him in one case due to inadequate evidence.
The blasts at Sankat Mochan temple and cantonment railway station on March 7, 2006, had killed 20 and left over 100 injured.
The first blast took place at 6.15 pm inside Sankat Mochan temple. After 15 minutes, a bomb exploded outside the first-class rest room at Varanasi cantonment railway station. A third cooker bomb was found near the railings of a railway crossing in a police station.
READ | 2006 Varanasi Blast Case: Ghaziabad Court Convicts Terrorist Waliullah
Six bombs were reportedly defused in other areas in the city, including a restaurant frequented by foreigners, in the vicinity of the railway station.
The Railways Ministry had announced ex-gratia of Rs 100,000 to the next of kin of those who died in the explosion at the Cantonment railway station in Varanasi.
Lawyers in Varanasi had refused to plead the case. The Allahabad High Court had transferred the case to the Ghaziabad district court.
In all the three cases, 121 witnesses were produced before the court. Waliullah, a resident of Phoolpur in Uttar Pradesh, was arrested by police after the blasts took place on April 6, 2006.
In April 2006, a special task force, which was investigating the blasts, had claimed that Waliullah was linked to a terrorist group in Bangladesh, Harkat-ul-jehad Al Islami, and was the mastermind behind the blasts.
Besides Waliullah, there were four other suspects, of which three (Mustafeez, Jakaria and Waseer) remain at large while a fourth (Mohammad Zuber) was killed in a police crackdown, a PTI report said.