BODH GAYA BLASTS: 5 IM MEN GET LIFE IMPRISONMENT

PATNA: The special NIA court of Bihar on Friday sentenced all five Indian Mujahideen insurgents in the 2013 Bodh Gaya serial blasts case to life imprisonment. The court also imposed ₹10,000 penalty for each convicts, failing which their imprisonment would increased by another six months. The court had earlier convicted the accused on May 25. They convicts have been identified as-Umer Siddiqui, 39, Azaharuddin Qureshi ,25, Imtiyaz Ansari alias Alam ,35, Haider Ali alias Abdullah alias Black Beauty alias Salim alias Shakur, 30, and Mujibullah Ansari, 28.

PATNA: The special NIA court in Bihar on Friday sentenced all five Indian Mujahideen insurgents in the 2013 Bodh Gaya serial blasts case to life imprisonment. The court also imposed ₹10,000 penalty on each convict, failing which their jail term would be increased by another six months.

The court had earlier convicted the accused on May 25. They were also allegedly involved in the Gandhi Maidan serial bomb blasts on October 31, 2013 that claimed seven lives and left more than 90 people injured.

These convicts had planted altogether 13 improvised explosive devices (IED) inside the historic Buddhist temple at Bodh Gaya of which nine had exploded on July 7, 2013.

Four IEDs exploded in the temple, a UNESCO World Heritage site, including one near the sacred Bodhi tree, while six exploded within one kilometre radius.

IT SAID THAT THE DISPUTED SITE WAS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE AND HAD “ANCIENT MONUMENTS, ANTIQUE ARTEFACTS... WHICH CONSTITUTE OUR NATIONAL HERITAGE”