<p>A Ghaziabad court on Monday awarded life term to two terror convicts, including a Pakistani national, who planted in an Uttar Pradesh government-run bus in 1996 a bomb that killed 16 people in Modinagar town.<br /><br /></p>.<p>One suspect was acquitted. Additional district and sessions judge Mangal Prasad Yadav gave life term to Mohammad Mateen, a Pakistani national arrested from Jammu and Kashmir in 1997, and Mohammad Iliyas, a resident of Muzaffarnagar, and slapped a penalty of Rs 50,000 on each.<br /><br />The court acquitted third suspect Tehseen in absence of evidence to link him to the April 27, 1996 explosion on national highway-58 which left 18 people injured.<br />The bus was going from Delhi to Dehradun.<br /><br />As soon as the court pronounced the sentence, Iliyas shouted that he had been wronged and that he had lost faith in the judiciary.<br /><br />Mateen appeared calm and quite. Relatives of some blast victims were disappointed that the convicts were not give the death sentence.<br /><br />Additional district government counsel Rajendra Kasana said after the incident a case was registered in Modi Nagar police station under penal provisions for murder, attempt to murder, rioting and criminal conspiracy and under the Explosives Act.<br /><br />The criminal investigation department of the state later took over the probe and filed the chargesheet, he said.<br /><br />The formal set of charges said after Mateen reached India from Pakistan, Iliyas provided him shelter in his house. The conspiracy for the blast was also hatched there, he said.<br /></p>
<p>A Ghaziabad court on Monday awarded life term to two terror convicts, including a Pakistani national, who planted in an Uttar Pradesh government-run bus in 1996 a bomb that killed 16 people in Modinagar town.<br /><br /></p>.<p>One suspect was acquitted. Additional district and sessions judge Mangal Prasad Yadav gave life term to Mohammad Mateen, a Pakistani national arrested from Jammu and Kashmir in 1997, and Mohammad Iliyas, a resident of Muzaffarnagar, and slapped a penalty of Rs 50,000 on each.<br /><br />The court acquitted third suspect Tehseen in absence of evidence to link him to the April 27, 1996 explosion on national highway-58 which left 18 people injured.<br />The bus was going from Delhi to Dehradun.<br /><br />As soon as the court pronounced the sentence, Iliyas shouted that he had been wronged and that he had lost faith in the judiciary.<br /><br />Mateen appeared calm and quite. Relatives of some blast victims were disappointed that the convicts were not give the death sentence.<br /><br />Additional district government counsel Rajendra Kasana said after the incident a case was registered in Modi Nagar police station under penal provisions for murder, attempt to murder, rioting and criminal conspiracy and under the Explosives Act.<br /><br />The criminal investigation department of the state later took over the probe and filed the chargesheet, he said.<br /><br />The formal set of charges said after Mateen reached India from Pakistan, Iliyas provided him shelter in his house. The conspiracy for the blast was also hatched there, he said.<br /></p>