On Wednesday, a sessions court awarded death sentences to two individuals, one of whom hails from Bangladesh, convicted of orchestrating the 2005 Shramjivi Express train blast. The attack resulted in a tragic toll of at least 14 fatalities and over 62 people injured.
The convicts, found guilty on December 23, were also slapped with a fine of Rs 5 lakh each.
District government counsel Satish Pandey stated that additional sessions court judge Rajesh Kumar Rai has handed down death sentences to Hilal alias Hilaluddin and Nafikul Vishwas, who were convicted in the Shramjivi train blast case.
Hilaluddin, a Bangladeshi resident, stands accused of planting a bomb on the train, while Nafikul Biswas, hailing from West Bengal, has been charged with assisting him. In 2016, two additional individuals involved in the Shramjeevi train blast case were also sentenced to death.
Presently, the two convicts are incarcerated in Hyderabad jail for a separate case. The prolonged duration of their final hearings, spanning six years, was marked by numerous adjournments.
Stringent security measures were implemented by the local administration, and following the court’s pronouncement of the punishment, the convicts were transported to jail in a police vehicle.
The detonation, which occurred around 5:00 pm on July 28, 2005, near Jaunpur station in Uttar Pradesh, destroyed a coach belonging to the Patna-New Delhi train.
As per the prosecution, the explosive material RDX was concealed in the coach’s toilet.
RDX has been employed in numerous terrorist attacks within the country, such as the Ayodhya train bombing in June 2000.
Eyewitnesses recounted that two young men, carrying a white suitcase, boarded the train at Jaunpur. Shortly thereafter, both individuals disembarked from the moving train without their suitcases, and a few minutes later, the explosion took place.