'Calculated savagery to destabilise social order': HC on '13 Hyd blasts

The justice system must respond with its harshest and most unflinching sanction to an act of terror, the Telangana high court asserted in its verdict that confirmed the death penalty to five Indian Mujahideen operatives convicted for executing the 2013 Dilsukhnagar twin bomb blasts in Hyderabad.

- Ayesha Arvind

BENGALURU:

Condemning the terror that claimed 18 lives and leaving 131 grievously injured, the high court underlined that "when terror bombings strike with calculated ferocity at innocent civilians, the death penalty emerges as the only sanction capable of matching the crime's existential threat."

In the searing 357-page verdict that was released late on Wednesday, the division bench of justices K Lakshman and P Sree Sudha classified the attack as one of the most heinous to ever confront the Indian justice system, calling it a "cold-blooded conspiracy" meticulously designed "to destabilise the social order" and "maximise carnage and despair".

"When terror strikes the innocent with calculated savagery, the law shall rise with equal and unrelenting force to protect justice's sanctity and the nation's soul," said the bench, adding it must confront the grim reality of crimes that shatter the bounds of civilized tolerance, demanding a sanction commensurate with its horror.