Eleven jailed for life in India over 2002 riots that left 1,000 dead
Eleven people have been sentenced to life in prison for their part in the religious riots that swept across the western state of Gujarat in 2002 and left more than 1,000 dead.
The judge rejected the demand for the death penalty as the prosecution failed to prove the charge of a criminal conspiracy against the defendants.
Gujarat riots massacre: judge convicts 24 over killing of 69 Muslims
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Twelve more defendants were sentenced to seven years in prison and one to 10 years in prison in connection with a riot in a Muslim neighbourhood in Ahmedabad, in which dozens of homes were set on fire and 69 people were killed.
The dead included a former politician from the opposition Congress party, Ehsan Jafri. His widow, Zakia Jafri, expressed her disappointment with the verdict. She said: “This is hardly the punishment for the crime they have committed.”
The Gujarat riots, which erupted after a train carriage full of Hindu nationalists was engulfed in a fire that killed 60 people inside, pitted mobs of Hindus against Muslims, who were widely blamed for setting the fire, though arson was never confirmed.
The riots have long dogged the current prime minister Narendra Modi, who was Gujarat’s top elected official at the time, amid allegations that authorities allowed and even encouraged the bloodshed. Modi has repeatedly denied any role in the disturbances, and India’s supreme court has said it found no evidence to prosecute him.
Criminal cases against participants in the riots have moved slowly through India’s legal system. The first high-profile convictions came in 2012 when Maya Kodnani, a former state government minister, and 31 others were found guilty of charges ranging from rioting to murder linked to an attack in a small industrial town on Ahmedabad’s outskirts in which 95 people were killed.
Kodnani was sentenced to 28 years in prison but has been free on bail pending her appeal.