New Delhi: Nearly four years after a special court convicted 49 persons in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case, the Gujarat high court on Tuesday (July 7) upheld the verdict, confirming death sentences for 38 members of the banned Indian Mujahideen (IM) and life imprisonment for the remaining 11. The court has also directed the Gujarat government to compensate the victims and their families, The Hindu reported.A division bench of Justices A.Y. Kogje and Samir Dave, hearing the appeals filed by the convicts against the February 2022 judgment, dismissed them all, while accepting the state government’s plea seeking confirmation of the death sentences.The court directed the state government to pay Rs 10 lakh to the next of kin of each person killed in the blasts and Rs 5 lakh to those who sustained serious injuries, and Rs 2,50,000 to those with minor injuries.“Today, the Gujarat High Court delivered one of India’s strongest and most historic verdicts: near-total conviction, maximum punishment upheld for the guilty,” said Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi, after the judgement.In February 2022, a special court in Ahmedabad had convicted 49 persons in the case and acquitted 28 others. In a subsequent hearing the same month, the court awarded the death penalty to 38 convicts and sentenced 11 others to life imprisonment.This was the first time an Indian court awarded the death penalty to so many convicts in a single case.The incident dates back to July 26, 2008, when a total of 21 explosions ripped through Ahmedabad within a span of 70 minutes. Fifty-six people were killed and over 200 people were injured.The bombs had exploded at various spots in the city, including the state government-run civil hospital, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation-run LG Hospital, on buses, parked bicycles, in cars and other places, killing 56 persons. As many as 29 live bombs were also found in Surat in the next couple of days, though none of them exploded. The trial was conducted after the court merged 20 FIRs from Ahmedabad and 15 FIRs from Surat.A total of nine different judges presided over the case, starting with Bela Trivedi, in whose court charges were framed against the accused on February 15, 2010. Justice Trivedi later became a judge of the Supreme Court.Special judge A.R. Patel, who delivered the 2022 judgement, had started hearing the case from June 14, 2017.