11 SIMI terrorists, including mastermind Safdar Nagori, get life term for possessing explosives, weapons and plotting anti-national activities

Indore: In a major development on Monday, 11 SIMI terrorists including mastermind Safdar Nagori were awarded lifetime imprisonment by Indore District Court.

The 11 convicts got life term for possession of weapons, explosives and ammunition and also for plotting anti-national activities.

The trial was going on before the Indore special CBI court following their arrest by the STF in March 2008.

Safdar Nagori was the face of Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

Nagori was accused of being the mastermind behind the 2008 back-to-back serial bombings across cities - the actual bombings were allegedly carried out by the Indian Mujahideen. 

The death toll in the attacks, carried out on July 26, 2008, was reportedly 57 people. Nagori had been lodged at Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad for a long period before he was sentenced.

Students’ outfit SIMI was banned in 2001 and a case was registered against Nagori in Ujjain’’s Mahakal Police Station way back in 1997. Thereafter, he was declared an absconder on December 11, 2000.

Reportedly, serial blasts in Ahmedabad carried out on July 26 was part of a larger conspiracy, hatched by IM and SIMI in order to foment terror in Gujarat to avenge the 2002 post-Godhra riots killings of Muslims.