All the five operatives of the Indian Mujahideen, who were held guilty a week ago in the twin bombings at Dilsukhnagar in 2013, were awarded death sentence by a special court here on Monday.
The NIA Special Court operating from the Cherlapalli Central Prison pronounced the verdict around 5 p.m. No family member of any of the five convicts was present at the court which was located inside the prison. Counsel for the convicts too was not present at the court.
On December 13, the Special Court Judge had declared that Asadullah Akhtar of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, Zia-ur-Rahman, a Pakistani national, Mohammed Tahseen Akhtar of Bihar, Mohammed Ahmed Siddibappa Zaraar of Karnataka and Aizaz Saeed Shaik were guilty of snuffing out 18 lives in a terror attack. The judge had posted the case for Monday for pronouncing quantum of punishment.
Telangana police made elaborate security arrangements in the vicinity of the Cherlapalli prison in the backdrop of the court’s pronouncement of punishment in the case. No person was allowed beyond the prison’s first entrance without being subjected to frisking.
NIA prosecutor K. Surender presented to the court, citing different judgments, that the convicts should be awarded the highest punishment. He maintained that the Constitution had guaranteed the right to life to people but the convicts had decimated 18 lives, including that of an unborn child in mother’s womb, by detonating two Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs)
Mr. Surender submitted to the court that the case should be considered rarest of the rare in the backdrop of innocent lives being lost. Since counsel for the convicts had not turned up, the judge asked them if they had anything to say.
“The convicts said let them be hanged when the judge sought their reaction to the prosecutor’s argument,” a police officer who was present at the court and unwilling to be named told The Hindu . “Phaansi do (Hang us)” were the words used by them. Along with the death sentence, the judge imposed on the convicts varied fine amounts under different sections of the law.
‘Old or new currency?
’“Interestingly, the convicts asked the judge if they could pay the fine amounts in banned currency notes or should use the new ones,” the police officer said. NIA Prosecutor K. Surender, speaking to media persons outside the prison, said the court was convinced of the reliability of witnesses presented by the prosecution.
“The convicts have liberty to go for an appeal but as prosecutors we did our job,” he said.
