In a major development, a local court acquitted 9 Hindus who were falsely accused of rioting and unlawful assembly in Ahmedabad during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
For the unversed, the police had booked 11 Hindus on charges of stone-pelting and rioting in the Madhavpura locality of the city on 9th May 2002.
Since the alleged incident, 2 of the victims have passed away. Four witnesses told the court they couldn’t identify the rioters more than 23 years after the incident.
As such, the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate D J Parmar acquitted the 9 victims who were falsely accused of rioting and unlawful assembly.
He concluded “At the end of all discussions, I conclude that the prosecution has failed to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the accused persons unlawfully assembled on May 9, 2002, between 14.15 and 14.45 with the intent to riot in order to harm the lives and property of people of another faith, to assert dominance over them, and to incite communal tension by throwing stones…“
It must be mentioned that riots broke out in Gujarat in 2002 after a Muslim mob sat fire to 2 coaches of Sabarmati Express near the Godhra railway station, burning 59 Hindu pilgrims alive. A total of 31 Islamists were found guilty of committing the heinous crime.
11 of them were handed the death penalty by a special fast-track court on March 1, 2011. Their names include Abdul Razzak Kurkur, Ismail Suleja, Jabbir Binyamin Behra, Ramzani Binyamin Behra, Mehboob Hassan, Siraj Bala, Irfan Kalandar, Irfan Patadia, Hassan Lalu, Mehboob Chanda, & Salim Zarda. Their death penalty was later commuted to a life sentence in October 2017.
Among the convicted, the other 20 were awarded life sentences. They included Suleman Ahmad Hussain, Abdul Rehman Abdul Majid Dhantiya, Kasim Abdul Sattar, Irfan Siraj Pado Ghanchi, Anwar Mohmmad Mehda, Siddik, Mehboob Yakub Mitha, Soheb Yusuf Ahmed Kalandar, Saukat, Siddik Mohmmad Mora, Abdul Sattar Ibrahim Gaddi Asla, Abdul Rauf Abdul Majid Isa, Yunus Abdulhaq Samol, Ibrahim Abdul Razak Abdul Sattar Samol, Saukat Yusuf Ismail Mohan, Bilal Abdullah Ismail Badam Ghanchi, Farook, Ayub Abdul Gani Ismail Pataliya, Saukat Abdulah Maulvi Isamail Badam, Md Hanif.
