DHAKA (TIP): Eight HuJI militants, including its chief, were on Monday sentenced to death by a Bangladeshi court for a 2001 bomb attack targeting Bengali new year celebrations that claimed 10 lives. “They shall be hanged by the neck till they are dead,” additional metropolitan judge Ruhul Amin pronounced in a crowded courtroom as detained Harkat-ul-Jihad al- Islami (HuJI) chief Mufty Abdul Hannan and seven others appeared in the dock under heavy security vigil. “The attack was carried out to destabilise the country and create panic,” Amin said.

The court also handed down life imprisonment to six others, three of them still on the run. Hannan along with seven others faced the trial in person after arrest. A prison van escorted by several police cars brought the detained militants to the court complex here. Armed police contingents and security officials in plain clothes kept a sharp vigil, allowing people inside the court only after thorough security checks. The HuJI operatives carried out the bomb attack in 2001 in Ramna Batmul here as people were celebrating the Bengali New Year ‘Pahela Baishakh’ which the militants claimed was “anti-Islamic”.