Godhra verdict: 31 convicted, 63 acquitted

Mangalore Today News Network

Ahmedabad, Feb 22:  A special court in Ahmedabad has given verdict in the 2002 Godhra train burning case, convicting 31 people under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and acquitting 63 of those accused. Quantum of punishment will be announced on February 25.

 

 

 

The court pronounced judgment on the role of over 90 people accused of conspiring and burning the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002.  Fifty-nine people, mostly Kar Sewaks returning from Ayodhya, were killed in the incident.
 

The court has upheld that there was a conspiracy behind the attack on the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express. The other theory was that it was a spontaneous riot situation fuelled by an altercation between Kar Sevaks and Muslim vendors at Godhra station in Gujarat.  The verdict was pronounced at Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Central Jail, where the trial was held.

A mob of around 1,000 people had targeted the S-6 coach of the train at the Godhra station on that February day in 2002. The death of the 59 people triggered the worst communal riots in the history of Independent India. Close to 1,200 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in these riots in Gujarat.

Initial police investigations indicated that it could have been a spontaneous riot situation, but a Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up later claimed that the act was pre-planned.

 
This first SIT, led by IPS officer Rakesh Asthana, said in its report that a cleric, Maulvi Umarji, had ordered four lieutenants to mobilise a mob at the station to target the S-6 bogey that was carrying Kar Sewaks.

 
In saying so, the SIT report backed Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s statements on that day calling it a "pre-planned massacre". Modi has been accused of making those statements to create anti-Muslim sentiment.

 
There were allegations that investigations were biased both in the Godhra case and in the Gujarat riots cases, and the Supreme Court finally ordered another SIT investigation in 2008, this time under RK Raghavan. On Godhra, this SIT too endorsed the findings of the earlier SIT.

 
Trial in the case began in June 2009 with the framing of the charges against the accused, who have been in Sabarmati jail since 2002. All the accused in the case have been charged with criminal conspiracy and murder.

 
After completion of the hearing last September, the verdict could not be given as there was a Supreme Court stay on it. This stay was lifted on October 26, 2010.
 

Security is tight in Gujarat. Special State Reserve Police Force personnel have been deployed in sensitive cities of Gujarat, particularly in communally sensitive places in Godhra and Ahmedabad. ndtv