A special NIA court in Patna on Wednesday convicted nine out of 10 accused of the October 27, 2013 Patna serial blast case planned and executed by operatives of terrorist outfit Indian Mujahideen to eliminate BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate NarendraModi.
Coincidently, the judgment of this case came on the anniversary of this terrorist incident, which had killed six people and injured around 80 persons. Six powerful explosions had taken place on Gandhi Maidan ground in Patna hours before Modi was scheduled to address the rally named as Hunkar rally to start his campaign for 2014 parliamentary elections.
Another explosion had taken place inside a toilet of platform number 10 of Patna railway junction where a suspect Tariq Ansari (25) alias Enul had died due to injuries.
Despite the terror attack Modi addressed the rally at the ground that remained
historic.
The NIA court headed by the judge Gurwinder Singh Malhotra convicted Haider Ali alias Black Beauty, Noman Ansari, Mohammed Mujibullah Ansari, Mohammed Imtiaz Alam, Ahmed Hussain, Mohammed Firoze Aslam, Imtiaz Ansari, Mohammed Iftiqar Alam and Azharuddin Qureshi. One Fakruddin was freed due to lack of evidence.
The court will pronounce the quantum of punishment on November 1.
The investigation was handed over to the NIA, which disclosed that the entire conspiracy was hatched in Ranchi and Indian Mujahideen had developed terror modules in Ranchi.
A number of youths were arrested from Sithio village and other parts of Ranchi, who were tried and sentenced. NIA carried out nationwide raids and arrested more than a dozen suspects of various terrorist activities carried by Indian Mujahideen. NIA busted Sithio module of Indian Mujahideen and said convicts had travelled to Patna to carry out the attack.
Even the deceased suspect was from this village along with 15-year-old boy, who had participated in planning and execution of a terrorist attack on the rally. This minor accused was punished by a Juvenile Justice Board in 2017 with three years of imprisonment.
Investigation revealed that Haider Ali, a native of Aurangabad district of Bihar but settled in Ranchi and his associate Tahseen Akhtar (Samastipur in Bihar) had recruited youths to plan the attack. The NIA had recovered a huge cache of weapons (18 live bombs, six timers, over 20 detonators) at an abandoned place in Sithio village. In another raid NIA seized nine powerful time bombs from a lodge Iram Lodge under Hindpiri police station area of Ranchi. Subsequent investigation revealed that the July 2013 Bodhgaya blast was carried out by the same group.
