A court in India has sentenced 38 persons to death in connection with the bombing in Ahmedabad in 2008.

According to lawyers, an Indian court sentenced 38 Muslim men to death and 11 others to life in jail for a series of terrorist bombings in Ahmedabad in 2008 that killed more than 50 people.

The 16 coordinated explosions shook Gujarat, a western state where Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002 are thought to have killed hundreds of people, predominantly Muslims.
On July 26, 2008, a group known as the "Indian Mujahideen" claimed responsibility for the bombings.

After the prosecution sought the death penalty, Judge A.R. Patel imposed the sentence, calling the occurrence a "rarest of rare case" in which innocent lives were lost.

A defense counsel stated that the verdict would be appealed to a higher court.

"We requested moderate punishments for the defendants because they have already served over 13 years in prison," Khalid Shaikh told Reuters.
"However, the majority of them were sentenced to death by the court. We will undoubtedly file an appeal."

The Indian Mujahideen, according to the US State Department, have "significant ties to Pakistan" and are responsible for "dozens of bomb attacks across India since 2005" that have killed hundreds of civilians, as well as playing a "facilitative role" in the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed more than 160 people.