Victims were burnt alive in the colony; prosecution and activists disappointed with the judgement
Ahmedabad: Calling Gulberg massacre the “darkest day” in the history of civil society, a special SIT court yesterday awarded life term to 11 convicts for burning alive 69 people, including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, in one of the worst riots post-Godhra violence in 2002.
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Family members of the convicts after the sentence was announced
However, the judgement left the prosecution, Jafri’s widow Zakia and civil rights activists disappointed saying it was lenient on the perpetrators. Rejecting the demand for death sentence for all the convicts, the court said life imprisonment for the 11 will be till death if the state does not exercise power to remit the sentence, which Special court Judge P B Desai said was not necessary.
Gulberg society massacre convicts being taken away from the SIT court in Ahmedabad. Pics/PTI
It awarded a 10-year jail term to one of the 13 convicted for lesser offences while the other 12 have been given a seven-year sentence each. The prosecution had argued that all the 24 convicts should be given death penalty.
While giving reasons on why he thought that this was not a fit case to give capital punishment to the convicts, the judge said that post the incident, 90% of the accused were released on bail. Yet no complaints against them have been given even by victims, and there is no record to show that they committed any offence during the time of bail, the judge further said.
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