2013 Patna serial blasts: HC cuts death to 30 years in jail for 4

PATNA: The Patna high court on Wednesday commuted the death penalty of four persons convicted for the 2013 blasts targeting Narendra Modi's poll rally in Patna to 30 years of imprisonment.

A division bench comprising justices Ashutosh Kumar and Jitendra Kumar also upheld the life imprisonment awarded to two other convicts by a special NIA court.

A series of explosions had rocked Patna's Gandhi Maidan and nearby locations ahead of and during a massive rally that was addressed by Modi, then the Gujarat chief minister and BJP's prime ministerial candidate, in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

A special NIA court convicted nine accused on Nov 1, 2021, of whom four - Imteyaz Alam, Haider Ali, Numan Ansari and Md Mujibullah Ansari - were sentenced to death, while two - Md Umer Siddiqui and Azharuddin Qureshi - were handed life imprisonment.

In its 83-page judgment, the HC bench said "a plain and co-referential reading of evidence makes it very clear that all six appellants are guilty of offences of murder and offences punishable under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 and Explosive Substances Act, 2001".

The court, however, commuted the death sentence of the four convicts, observing that they "are persons of young age with no established trans-border contacts, and there was no attempt by them to provoke any retaliatory action".