City Crime Branch on Saturday filed a charge sheet against 24 persons, all of whom are under trials in 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case, in connection with the Sabarmati jail break attempt case, in a magistrate court in Ahmedabad.
The accused had dug a 213-feet long tunnel from Chhota Chakkar area of the Sabarmati central jail, which had come to the notice of the prison authorities on February 11.
The charge sheet was filed in the court of metropolitan magistrate BJ Ganatra.
Some of the main accused who have been charge sheeted in the case include, Safdar Nagori, Qayamuddin Kapadiya, Abbas Sameja, Mohammad Sajid Mansuri, Zisah Sheikh, Mohammad Ali, Mohamad Saif, Razuddin Nasar and Shibli Abdul Karim.
The accused have been charged under IPC sections 130 (aiding escape of state prisoners), 225 (resistance or obstruction to lawful apprehension of another person) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy).
All the accused have also been charged under Prison Act of 1894 under sections 42 (prohibition for introduction/ removal of prohibited articles into or from prison and communication with prisoners) and 45 (wilful disobedience to any regulation of the prison).
Police have listed 14 under trials living in barrack number four as the main culprits for the escape bid, while ten others have been shown as their helpers.
The charge sheet, which runs into around 300 pages, has listed 169 witnesses, including 20 jail inmates and many police officers, apart from inquest witness.
The charge sheet says that the tunnel was 213 feet long, however it has no mention about its width.
It says that the accused carried out the work meticulously and had managed to hide it from the jail authorities.
The charge sheet further says that when the barracks were opened in the morning, three inmates used to start the work of digging of tunnel, while others used to guard the area. They had devised special code words to alert those digging the tunnel, to continue the work or to stop the work.
The undertrials had volunteered to take up gardening work outside their barracks and used to dump the sand coming out of the tunnel digging work in garden work.
They had used tools like, wooden logs, iron angles, blade of electric cutters, screw drivers for digging the tunnel, the chargesheet said.
Engineering books were recovered from the accused, using which, they had dug the tunnels, the charge sheet says.
