The Rajasthan High Court on Wednesday, March 29th, acquitted all the accused in the 2008 Jaipur blasts that left 71 people dead and around 180 injured, the PTI reported.
The division bench of the Rajasthan HC, comprising justices Pankaj Bhandari and Sameer Jain, acquitted the accused Saifur Rehman, Sarwar Azami, Md Salman and Md Saif after having set aside their conviction and death sentence. The sentence was earlier pronounced by a trial court in Jaipur on December 20th, 2019. Notably, after the verdict of their death sentence in 2019, the accused filed their pleas and contested the case.
Alongside setting aside the previous death sentence given to the accused, the Rajasthan HC also reprimanded the investigating agency Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) for their botched investigation that led the agency not to submit conclusive evidence against the alleged perpetration of the accused.
The Jaipur serial bomb blasts took place on May 13th, 2008. In the wake of the deadly blasts, the ATS investigated the incident and filed chargesheets against 13 alleged perpetrators. Eleven years after the incident, the four accused were given death sentences by a trial court in Jaipur while the ATS admitted that the others were still at large.
After the Rajasthan HC had acquitted the accused on Wednesday, their lawyer made allegations that the ATS concocted the evidence related to the case and botched the investigation.