A day after the Supreme Court acquitted all six convicts in the 2002 Akshardham temple terror attack case, four of them who have spent eleven years in the Sabarmati Central Jail of Ahmedabad were released on Saturday.
Confirming the development, Jail Superintendent RS Bhagora said that all the four persons were released in the evening.
"Based on the orders of Supreme Court and other affidavits submitted by their lawyers, we have released all the four persons," said Bhagora.
The Supreme Court in its order on Friday acquitted all the six convicts in the Akshardham temple attack case, saying "the story of the prosecution crumbles down at every juncture".
Thirty persons were killed in the attack on the Gandhinagar-based temple on September 24, 2002.
The six convicts acquitted by the apex court are: Altaf Mallick, Abdulmiya Kadri, Adam Ajmeri, Mohammad Hanif Shaikh, Abdul Qayum and Chand Khan aka Shan Miya.
"Among these, Altaf was sentenced to 5 years by a local court and he is already out after serving his term. Abdulmiya was sentenced to 10 years, and he was granted bail after 7 years of imprisonment and was out of jail when the (SC) verdict came," said defence counsel Ejaz Qureshi.
"Apart from these two, the remaining four were in jail since last 11 years," he said.
Qureshi went to central jail and produced necessary legal documents to the authorities.
"Among the four, Adam Ajmeri, Abdul Qayum and Chand Khan were given death penalty by a local court earlier while Mohammad Hanif Shaikh was given life imprisonment till death. All of them today came out jail after we submitted the papers to jail authorities," Qureshi said.
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