Nearly a decade and half after a murderous mob butchered 69 people including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri in Ahmedabad's Gulberg Society , a special court convicted 24 of the accused and acquitted 36.
Judge PB Desai convicted 11 people for murder and 13 for rioting and under other charges, even as he ruled out the possibility of conspiracy in the attack that took place a day after the Godhra train carnage. Sentencing has been postponed to June 6. The convicted include VHP leader Atul Vaidya.
Sitting BJP corporator from Asarva, Bipin Patel, has been acquitted for lack of evidence. KG , Erda, a former police inspector who was among the accused, has also been acquitted.
Ehsan Jafri's widow Zakia said she wasn't satisfied with the judgement. His son, Tanvir, said he was happy that it wasn't “a total washout“ but expressed dismay over the finding that there was no conspiracy. “My father had returned after campaigning for his party extensively for the by-election in Rajkot ... He was identified and killed,“ he said.“How was it that in spite of so many calls, no police reached the society for 10 hours unless there was some kind of an order to act in that manner?“ He said he would study the order and decide on challenging it after discussing with his lawyers.
The massacre is seen as one of the nine most heinous cases of 2002 riots. It was probed by a Special Investigation Team, formed by the SC and headed by former CBI director RK Raghavan.
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