A special NIA court on Monday awarded death sentence to four of the nine people convicted in the 2013 serial blasts that left six dead here at the venue of an election rally addressed by Narendra Modi, who was then the Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP’s PM candidate.

Special NIA judge Gurvinder Singh Mehrotra, who had on October 27 pronounced the nine guilty, also sentenced two other accused to life imprisonment, besides awarding 10 years rigorous imprisonment to as many and seven years in jail to another convict.

According to Special Public Prosecutor Lalan Prasad Singh, capital punishment has been awarded to Haider Ali, Noman Ansari, Mohd Mujibullah Ansari and Imtiyaz Alam.

“The court took a grim view of the series of explosions which were aimed at causing heavy casualties at a gathering of innocent people,” Singh told reporters outside the court.

“Two others — Umar Siddiqui and Azharuddin Qureishi — had confessed to their involvement during trial. The court, considering their confession, did not award death sentence to them but only sentenced them for life,” he added.

Notably, five of the convicts — Haider Ali, Mohd Mujibullah Ansari, Imtiyaz Alam, Umar Siddiqui and Azharuddin Ansari — were awarded life imprisonment by the court three years ago in connection with the serial blasts that had rocked the international pilgrim city of Bodh Gaya three months prior to the explosions at Gandhi Maidan in Patna.

Singh said of the remaining three convicts, Ahmed Husain and Mohd Firoz Aslam have been awarded 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment, while Iftikhar Alam got seven years in jail.