The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday set aside the death sentences of four men and the life imprisonment awarded to another in connection with the 2007 terror attack on a Central Reserve Police Force camp in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur, reported The Indian Express.

A division bench of Justices Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra and Siddhartha Varma acquitted all five accused persons, including two Pakistani nationals, citing lapses in the investigation that “went to the root of the case”.

However, the bench sentenced them to ten years’ rigorous imprisonment under a provision of the 1959 Arms Act related to possession of weapons and imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on each.

On December 31, 2007, assailants had opened fire at the CRPF camp, killing seven personnel and a rickshaw-puller, and injuring five others. The police had arrested seven persons in connection with the attack and claimed to have recovered arms and ammunition from them.

The High Court was on Wednesday hearing appeals filed by the five accused persons, who have been at the Bareilly Central Jail, against a 2019 judgement of a Rampur Sessions court.

The trial court had sentenced Mohammad Shareef (47), Sabaduddin (46), and two Pakistani nationals and alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives – Imran Shahzad (48) and Mohammad Farooq (47) – to death.

Another accused, Jung Bahadur (58), was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Two others, Gulab Khan (41) and Mohammad Kausar (48), were acquitted due to a lack of sufficient evidence.

While acquitting the five in the main case, the High Court said that the investigation suffered from defects and that the prosecution “miserably failed to prove the charges…beyond reasonable doubt”, The Indian Express reported.

It observed that the “case would have met a different result had the investigation and prosecution been conducted by a more trained police force”, according to the newspaper.

The court also flagged gaps in eyewitness accounts and lapses in the safekeeping of evidence.

It said that the period of imprisonment undergone by the five would be adjusted against the ten-year sentence under the Arms Act.

The bench also said the state would be “at liberty to deal appropriately with the lapses in investigation and proceed against the guilty police officers under law”.

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