Gujarat Riots: SC To Hear Bail Plea Of 31 Godhra Violence Convicts Today

The Supreme Court will on Friday hear the bail plea of 31 convicts in Gujarat's Godhra riot case of 2002.

The Supreme Court will on Friday hear the bail plea of 31 Godhra riot convicts some of whom have urged in the petition to be given bail till their appeals against conviction are disposed of. A trial court had sentenced 11 convicts while 20 others were sentenced to life imprisonment. Later, the Gujarat High Court upheld the conviction of 31 but reduced the death sentence in the case. The court will hear the matter a day after a Gujarat court acquitted all the accused in the Naroda riots which took place after the Godhra arson.

A special court in Ahmedabad on Thursday (April 20) acquitted all 69 accused in the 2002 Naroda Gam massacre case, including former BJP MLA Maya Kodnani, ex-Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi, and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Jaydeep Patel. The Naroda Gam case was one of nine major riots in Gujarat following February 27, 2002, burning of the Sabarmati Express in Godhra, for which a speedy day-to-day trial was ordered. The trials were assigned to designated courts and overseen by the Supreme Court, but the Naroda Gam case took years to resolve.

The trial was presided over by five judges over the years, and several previous orders by them documented the prosecution's delays as well as the defense's dilatory tactics. Kodnani, a former minister in the government of then-chief minister Narendra Modi, former Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Jaideep Patel, and V S Gohil, a former police inspector at the Naroda police station, are among those accused in the case.

Kodnani and Bajrangi were convicted in the Naroda Patiya case in 2012, which was the worst massacre of the Gujarat riots on February 28, 2002. Kodnani was sentenced to 28 years in prison, but she was acquitted by the Gujarat High Court in 2018. In the Naroda Gam case, 17 of the 86 defendants were acquitted during the trial, leaving 69 on bail. In the case, nearly 182 prosecution witnesses were cross-examined. Special Judge Shubhada Krishnakant Baxi adjourned the case on April 5.