DHAKA: Eleven people convicted of murder in the Gulbarg Society massacre in Gujarat of India were sentenced to life in jail by a special SIT court on Friday.
Of the 13 people convicted for lesser crimes, one was sentenced to 10 years in jail and 12 were given seven years in jail, reports the TOI.
The court said all the convicts will serve their sentences concurrently.
Also, the court didn't bar the state government from remitting the convicts’ sentences. That means, the convicts could end up serving shorter terms than they were sentenced to.
As many as 69 people, including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri were killed in 2002 in an attack on Gulbarg Society, a Muslim residential pocket.
“They are not a menace to society, the accused can be reformed,” said the court while delivering the sentence.
Gulbarg Society, a Muslim residential pocket of about 30 bungalows and 10 apartment blocks in Ahmedabad, was attacked a day after the Sabarmati Express train was torched in Godhra.
The massacre was committed on February 28, 2002 when Narendra Modi was Gujarat Chief Minister.
This case’s trial lasted seven years and was conducted in front of four different judges.
On June 2, the court had convicted 11 persons for murder and other offences, while 13 others, including VHP leader Atul Vaidya, were charged with lesser offences. The court has also acquitted 36 in the case.
The public prosecutor, representing the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT), had asked the court for nothing less than the death sentence or a jail term till 24 convicts are dead.
The lawyer for the victims, S M Vora, had also sought the maximum punishment for the accused and argued that sentencing for each offence should not run concurrently.
That's so that the convicts spend their entire life in jail, he said.
BDST: 1814 HRS, JUN 17, 2016
SR