2002 Godhra Riots: SIT court awards life imprisonment for two, acquits three

A special SIT court in Ahmedabad awarded two convicts life imprisonment in the 2002 Godhra train carnage case on Monday. The court acquitted three others in the case. In that incident, 59 ‘karsevaks’ were burnt alive in two coaches of the Sabarmati Express.

After the prosecution established the role of Farooq Bhana and Imran Sheru as conspirators in the burning of two coaches of the Sabarmati Express in 2002, Special judge H.C. Vora convicted the two accused. Other three who were acquitted include — Hussain Suleman Mohan, Kasam Bhamedi and Faruk Dhantiya.

All these five men were apprehended in between 2015-2016 and the trial was held at a special court set up at the Sabarmati Central Jail. As per the police records, Mohan was arrested from Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh, Dhantiya and Bhana were nabbed from their houses in Godhra, Bhamedi from Dahod railway station in Gujarat, while Bhatuk was caught in Malegaon, Maharashtra. However, eight accused in the case are still absconding.

In the previous decision, the special SIT court had convicted 31 people in the case on March 1, 2011. Later, the court awarded death sentence to 11 of them and life imprisonment to 20 others. However, the Gujarat High Court commuted the death sentence of 11 convicts to life imprisonment while upholding the punishment awarded by the special SIT court to 20 others.

Data says forty-nine ‘karsevaks’ were killed in the Godhra train burning incident on February 27, 2002. This triggered the worst violence in the history of Gujarat that killed 1,000 people — mostly belonging to the minority community.

ALSO READ: Rahul Gandhi: Congress party was not involved in 1984 anti-Sikh riots