Samleti blast: HC postpones hearing till February 26

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan High Court has postponed hearing on convicts of Samleti bomb blast case till February 26.
Kashmiri youth Abdul Hamid and six others were convicted for carrying out a bomb blast in a Roadways bus at Samleti in Dausa in 1996.
However, the presence of Prof SAR Gilani, who has been acquitted in the Parliament attack case, drew the attention of the media.
Gilani, while talking to the media, said that the case has been dragging on for the past 21 years and the accused were languishing in jail.
Counsel for the convicts Sayed Saadat Ali said that Gilani used to come to Jaipur during hearing to enquire about the progress of the case and also expressed solidarity with the accused who also belong to Kashmir.
An additional district court in Dausa had upheld the lower court order awarding death sentence to the prime accused Abdul Hamid and life imprisonment to six others in 2015. The trial court had pronounced death penalty to Hamid in September 2014. The accused had then appealed in the high court against their conviction.
While Hamid was awarded capital punishment, six others were given life imprisonment for the blast in a Rajasthan Roadways bus near Samleti in Dausa that left 14 people dead and 37 injured on May 22, 1996. The bus was on its way to Bikaner from Agra.