2006 Varanasi serial blast convict Waliullah Khan sentenced to death

Sixteen years after the Varanasi serial blast in which 28 people were killed and over 100 others injured, a district court in Ghaziabad on Monday sentenced Waliullah Khan, the main accused in the case, to death.

The court of district and sessions judge Jitendra Kumar Sinha also sentenced Khan to life imprisonment in the case under different sections of the IPC.

The temple town had witnessed a series of blasts at the famous Sankat Mochan Temple and Varanasi Cantonment railway station in March 2006, killing 28 people and had left more than one hundred others injured.

The court had on Saturday held 55-year old Waliullah, a resident of Phulpur in Prayagraj district, guilty under section 302 (murder), section 307 (attempt to murder) and also under the Exploisves Act. While he was sentenced to death under section 302 after being found guilty of triggering a blast at Sankat Mochan Temple, the court sentenced him to life imprisonment under the Explosives Act. He was acquitted in the case of blast at Varanasi Cantonment Railway station for want of evidence.

Waliullah was nabbed from Gosainganj near Lucknow. Three other accused in the case namely Mustakeem, Basheer and Zakariya, all citizens of Bangladesh, are still at large, while the fourth accused Mohammed Jubair was gunned down by the security personnel in Jammu & Kashmir in May 2006. Waliullah was the only one who stood trial in the case.

The case was transferred to Ghaziabad after the lawyers in Varanasi refused to represent Waliullah, who had claimed that he was innocent. His family members also claimed that he had been apprehended from a madarsa in Prayagraj and pleaded for leniency stating that he had an 80-year old mother, a wife and two children to look after.

As many as 38 witnesses had testified for the prosecution in the case.