This Wednesday was like any other Wednesday in Indian law of court but something dramatic happened this Wednesday, which was never witnessed earlier, It was a day of life sentences across the country on Wednesday. A total of 60 people were awarded life imprisonment in three high-profile and one lesser-known cases across India by courts for criminal acts in four separate cases.. They ranged from politician Amarmani Tripathi to policemen in Delhi, Islamic radicals in Tamil Nadu and Hindus charged with killing Muslims in Uttar Pradesh.

The crimes ranged from bomb blasts in Coimbatore to target BJP leader LK Advani and murder of a pregnant poetess in Lucknow following an affair to killing of two businessmen in a fake police encounter in Delhi and burning nine persons alive during communal riots in Kanpur in the aftermath of the demolition of Babri Masjid mosque.

The judges pronounced the stunning verdicts within hours of one another, ending years of agonizing trials and eventually delivering justice to the family members of those killed in the four cases. The maximum number of 31 life terms was awarded in Tamil Nadu's bustling Coimbatore town where a special judge found 31 Islamic radicals guilty for the deaths of 58 people in a string of deadly bomb blasts in 1998.

Court in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, also gave similar sentences to Tripathi's wife Madhumani, Tripathi's cousin Rohit Chaturvedi and a contract killer. The victim was shot dead in Lucknow in May 2003.

Source: (Khabrein, Hindustan Times)