2007 Ajmer Dargah blast case: NIA court awards life imprisonment to convicts Devendra Gupta, Bhavesh Patel

Jaipur: A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court here on Wednesday awarded life imprisonment to main convicts in the 2007 Ajmer Dargah bomb blast case.

According to ANI, both Devendra Gupta and Bhavesh Patel were sentenced to life imprisonment by the special NIA court.

The court had on March 8 convicted Bhavesh Patel, Devendra Gupta and Sunil Joshi and acquitted others including Swami Aseemanand. Joshi has already died.

The conviction was made under Sections 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of IPC, 3 / 4 of Explosive Substances Act and Sections 16 and 18 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

The blast on October 11, 2007 in the Dargah of Khawaja Moinuddin Chisti at the time of Roza Iftaar had left three pilgrims dead and 15 injured.

The case was handed over to the Rajasthan ATS and was later transferred to the National Investigation Agency which re-registered the case with the NIA police station in New Delhi on 6 April 2011.

There were as many as 149 witnesses in the case and 451 documents were examined. The NIA filed three supplementary chargesheets in the case.

With PTI inputs