PRAYAGRAJ: The Allahabad high court on Tuesday admitted a criminal appeal filed by Varanasi serial blasts accused Waliullah Khan against the death sentence awarded to him by a trial court in Ghaziabad.
Besides, a division bench comprising Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Sanjay Kumar Singh also summoned the records of the case from the lower court.
Waliullah had moved this criminal appeal before the high court, challenging the trial court judgment dated June 6, 2022, whereby he was awarded the death sentence after being convicted. He has filed this appeal through the jail administration of Ghaziabad where he is lodged at the Dasna jail.
Serial blasts had taken place at Varanasi’s Sankat Mochan temple and the Cantonment railway station (Varanasi Junction) in March 2006, claiming at least 20 lives. The first blast took place in the evening on March 7, 2006, inside the crowded Sankat Mochan temple under Lanka police station area. Immediately after 15 minutes, another bomb exploded outside the first-class retiring room at Varanasi Cantonment railway station.
As a result of the two explosions, at least 20 people were killed and about 100 were injured. On the same day, a pressure cooker bomb was also found near railing of a railway crossing in Dashashwamedh police station area of Varanasi district and was defused.
Waliullah, a resident of Phoolpur in Prayagraj, was arrested by police after the blast and the Allahabad high court transferred the trial of his cases to Ghaziabad after lawyers in Varanasi declined to defend him.
In all the three cases lodged against Waliullah, as many as 121 witnesses were produced before the trial court.
After the conclusion of the trial, the Ghaizabaf court on June 4, 2022, convicted Waliullah in two cases lodged under various sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC), including murder, attempt to murder and also under the Explosive Act. However, he was acquitted in the third case due to lack of evidence.
