An Indian court has acquitted an 81-year-old man accused of carrying out a series of bomb blasts in five cities across the country in 1993.
Abdul Karim Tunda was accused of being the mastermind of the explosions that ripped through trains in Lucknow, Kanpur, Hyderabad, Surat and Mumbai on the night of December 5-6 in 1993.
At least two people were killed and more than two dozen injured in the blasts.
The explosions coincided with the first anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Mosque by a Hindu mob in Ayodhya in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Mr Tunda was arrested in 2014 after evading law enforcement agencies for more than a decade.
A special court in Ajmer in the western state of Rajasthan on Thursday acquitted him due to lack of evidence, his lawyer said.
“The honourable court has acquitted Abdul Karim Tunda from all the charges. We always said that he is innocent, and the court gave this judgment today,” Shafiktullah Sultani said outside the court.
Mr Sultani said the federal investigating agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, could not produce concrete evidence against Mr Tunda.
The court, however, sentenced two other accused – Irfan, 70, and Hameeduddin, 44 – to life imprisonment.
The Indian police had alleged that Mr Tunda worked for the Pakistan-based, Al Qaeda-linked militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba as a bomb maker.
He was accused of being involved in several other bombings and is serving a life sentence over a bombing in northern Haryana state in 1996.
Mr Tunda will remain in jail.
The December 1993 bombings shocked the nation months after a series of highly co-ordinated attacks rocked the country's financial capital, Mumbai, then known as Bombay, in March, killing 257 people and injuring 1,400.
Unresolved crisis
Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly president was ousted, Moscow annexed Crimea and then backed a separatist insurgency in the east.
Fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces has killed more than 14,000 people. In 2015, France and Germany helped broker a peace deal, known as the Minsk agreements, that ended large-scale hostilities but failed to bring a political settlement of the conflict.
The Kremlin has repeatedly accused Kiev of sabotaging the deal, and Ukrainian officials in recent weeks said that implementing it in full would hurt Ukraine.
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Pay varies significantly depending on the school, its rating and the curriculum. Here's a rough guide as of January 2021:
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Saturday, April 20: 11am to 7pm - Abu Dhabi World Jiu-Jitsu Festival and Para jiu-jitsu.
Sunday, April 21: 11am to 6pm - Abu Dhabi World Youth (female) Jiu-Jitsu Championship.
Monday, April 22: 11am to 6pm - Abu Dhabi World Youth (male) Jiu-Jitsu Championship.
Tuesday, April 23: 11am-6pm Abu Dhabi World Masters Jiu-Jitsu Championship.
Wednesday, April 24: 11am-6pm Abu Dhabi World Professional Jiu-Jitsu Championship.
Thursday, April 25: 11am-5pm Abu Dhabi World Professional Jiu-Jitsu Championship.
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Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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