New Delhi: A Pakistani national was today (Nov 3, 2004) sentenced to death by a Delhi court for causing a bomb explosion in 1997 in a crowded blue line bus in New Delhi, killing four persons and injuring 24.

Additional Sessions Judge O P Saini found convict Mohammed Hussain alias Zulfiqar alias Abdul Hassan, a native of Jindrakhar village at Okara in Pakistan, guilty of the crime and handed down the capital punishment after terming it as "rarest of rare" case. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on Hussain.

On December 30, 1997, a bomb exploded at Rampura near Punjabi Bagh in West Delhi in a blue line bus plying between Ajmer Gate and Nangloi injuring 28. Four of the injured later succumbed to their wounds in a hospital, police said.

A city court had discharged accused Abdul Rehman, Azhar Ahmed and Maqsood Ahmed in the case for want of evidence. Another accused Abdul Karim alias Tunda is absconding, police said.