Terrorist Waliullah Khan held guilty in two cases of 2006 Varanasi serial bomb blasts

After a long wait of sixteen years following the serial bomb blasts that shook the entire Varanasi city in Uttar Pradesh, terrorist Mohammad Waliullah Khan who was accused of carrying out the blasts has been held guilty by a Ghaziabad court on Saturday in two of the three cases registered against him. After convicting him in the blast case, it was also said that the quantum of punishment will be pronounced on June 6, Monday at 2 PM. 

District Sessions Judge Jitendra Kumar Sinha who was hearing the matter had held Waliullah Khan guilty in two cases that were lodged under IPC sections of murder, attempt to murder, and mutilation and under the Explosives Act, informed government counsel Rajesh Sharma. 

The district government counsel further also informed that Khan was acquitted in the third case which was for a blast in a first-class waiting room at the Varanasi Cantonment Railway Station due to a lack of evidence. 

2006 Varanasi serial bomb blasts

The incident dates back to March 7, 2006, when two major blasts were reported from the holy city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh followed by which another incident a cooker bomb was found near the railings of a railway crossing in DashmaVedh police station on the same day. 

The first blast took place at the Sankat Mochan temple near the Banaras Hindu University in the evening around 6:15 when thousands of devotees gathered to offer prayers. The explosion claimed the lives of 20 people and left hundreds injured with severe damage. 

Shortly after that, another bomb exploded outside the first-class retirement quarters at the Varanasi cantonment railway station when the Delhi-bound Shiv Ganga Express was also at the platform. Just a month after these blasts, Waliullah was arrested in April 2006 after which the special task force, which was investigating the blasts, had claimed that he was linked to a terrorist outfit in Bangladesh Harkat-ul-jehad Al Islami, and was the mastermind behind the blasts. 

Lawyers in Varanasi had refused to plead the case. The Allahabad High Court had transferred the case to the Ghaziabad district court. In all three cases, 121 witnesses were produced before the court. 

With agency inputs; Image: PTI/Shutterstock