Explosion Killed 14 Passengers; Sentence On Jan 2
Lucknow: A court in UP’s Jaunpur convicted Friday two operatives of the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) in a 2005 train blast in which 14 people died and 61 were injured. Two other suspects in the Shramjeevi train blast case were given death sentences in 2016.
The punishment for Hilal alias Hilaluddin and Nafikul Biswas will be pronounced on January 2. Both Bangladeshis are at present lodged in Hyderabad jail in another case. They were produced before the Jaunpur court on Friday. The duo’s final hearings dragged six years due to several adjournments as they were lodged in Hyderabad jail.
The bomb, using military grade explosive RDX, had been kept in the general coach. While Hilal was found guilty of planting the bomb, Nafikul was accused of helping him in the blast at Harpalganj station in Jaunpur on July 28, 2005.
Eyewitnesses had reported that two young men boarded the train with a white suitcase. Shortly afterwards, both jumped out of the moving train and fled without their suitcase. A few minutes later, the explosion shook the train.
In all, six people, all Bangladeshis, were accused. Roni alias Alamgir and Obaidur Rahman, convicted in 2016 for assembling the bomb, have appealed their death sentences in the Allahabad high court. Two others, Ghulam Razdani alias Yahya and Sayeed, died during the pendency of the case.
According to the prosecution, the six were trained in bomb-making by two HuJI commanders, Abdul Rauf and Mufti Hannan. They entered India through the Padma river — flowing through Bangladesh and India — and procured the explosives from Patna. The Shramjeevi Express then ran between Patna and Delhi.
