A local court in Haryana on Tuesday sentenced alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba bomb expert Abdul Karim Tunda to life imprisonment in the 1996 Sonipat bomb blasts case, ANI reported. The court also imposed a penalty of Rs 1 lakh on the 75-year-old.

On Monday, Additional District and Sessions Judge Sushil Kumar Garg had convicted Tunda under sections 307 (attempt to murder) and 120B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 3 of the Explosives Act, according to PTI.

Tunda’s lawyer Ashish Vats had said they would challenge the verdict before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Tunda, who is currently in a jail in Sonipat, had claimed that he was in Pakistan during the 1996 blasts. At least 15 people were injured in two explosions at a cinema hall and another near a sweets shop in Sonipat.

The suspected LeT operative was one of the 20 terrorists India had asked Pakistan to hand over after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai in 2008. He was arrested from the Indo-Nepal border at Uttarakhand’s Banbasa on August 16, 2013. He was suspected to be involved in as many as 20 blasts across the country.