Times of India

COIMBATORE, Oct 25: Nine years after deadly attacks aimed at assassinating BJP leader L K Advani left 58 people dead, a special court on Wednesday marched off 31 people, including terror mastermind S A Basha and his son Siddique Ali of the Al Umma group, to serve life terms in jail.

While judge K Uthirapathy didn't sent off any of the convicted to the gallows, he did indicate that the crime was serious enough. One of the sentenced, Abdul Ozir, was awarded four life terms for conspiracy and planting bombs at four places. That would fetch him jail terms totalling 138 years on several charges, except that the terms are to run concurrently and wouldn't likely exceed the standard 14 years. In fact, since many terrorists like him have already spent nearly a decade in jail as undertrials, they could walk out in four years despite the severity of their punishment for 23 charges ranging from those in the Explosives Act, criminal conspiracy to promoting enmity between communities.

Sentences will also run concurrently for another terrorist named Jahangir, who received three life terms and 60 more years under various sections; 18 persons who received 'double lifer' and imprisonment ranging from 33 to 95 years and 11 others who were sentenced for one life term along with imprisonment ranging from 10 to 45 years, Uthirapathy said.

He sentenced the remaining four others, for whom sentences were read out, to long term imprisonment ranging from 20 to 23 years. Sentences for 35 other men convicted for the blasts that also left 200 people wounded, would be pronounced on Thursday and Friday. Reacting to the sentence, public prosecutor T Balasundaram told TOI the terrorists should have been given death sentences. "But, at least, we expected that the judge would give consecutive sentence. If that had happened, after finishing the period of one life sentence, the second period would've begun. But now that the sentence would run concurrently and it would be set off against the undertrial period spent in jail, they'd all come out soon," he said.

Sundaram said according to the Supreme Court, life sentence is till a convict's death. But, after the judicial custody, the convict comes into state custody. Here the state under Section 433 and 433 (A) of Criminal Procedure Code can reduce or remit the sentence awarded to him by the court, but only after a minimum of 14 years. "But this 14 years can get further reduced to 12 years taking into account a variety of factors like national holidays, good conduct etc. So, those who're sentenced today would come out in less than three years time," Sundaram said. Judge Uthirapathy embarked on the marathon sentencing exercise on August 1. He had then acquitted eight accused, including PDP leader Abdul Nazar Madani of all charges. Uthirapathy who staggered the sentence over a period of two months in the process had earlier sentenced 88 persons for minor offences ranging from three to nine years' imprisonment