AHMEDABAD – An Indian court on Tuesday handed 11 death sentences and 20 life terms to Muslims convicted of burning Hindus alive in a train fire which triggered revenge attacks that killed 2,000 people. Last week, 31 Muslims were found guilty on murder and conspiracy charges for causing the 2002 train fire in the western state of Gujarat, but 63 others were acquitted in a setback to the prosecution and police.
Fifty-nine Hindu pilgrims perished in the blaze at Godhra station, sparking an anti-Muslim backlash that resulted in some of India’s worst religious violence since independence from Britain in 1947. Hindu mobs hungry for revenge rampaged through Muslim neighbourhoods in several cities during three days of bloodshed.
A total of 94 people, all Muslims, had stood trial at a court in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad city, where they had been detained since 2002. Responsibility for the fire has been the subject of fierce dispute between India’s Hindu and Muslim communities, and the trial verdicts supported Hindu claims that it was a planned attack rather than a result of mob violence.
Previously, a national inquiry concluded that the fire was an accident and an investigation by Indian news magazine Tehelka has also cast serious doubt on the neutrality of the police and the quality of their witnesses. The judge felt the crimes fell “under the category of the rarest of the rare”, special public prosecutor JM Panchal told reporters outside the court, meaning the death sentence could be pronounced.
“There was an active role, as far as these people are concerned, in the conspiracy and also setting fire to the coach,” Panchal said. Defence lawyer I.M. Munshi said all the men would appeal against the punishment in the Gujarat High Court.
“It is very difficult to swallow,” he said. Muslims have always denied setting the train ablaze on February 27, 2002, though an angry crowd had gathered at Godhra station to protest against Hindu passengers allegedly taunting Muslim porters and hawkers.
