Ahmedabad:
After nine years spent in jail, 49 men were freed on Tuesday. They left the Sabarmati Jail in Ahmedabad in a bus to return to families who had given up hope of ever receiving justice.
Earlier today, 63 people were acquitted and 31 convicted for their role in 2002, when a compartment of the Sabarmati Express was set on fire at the Godhra train station near Ahmedabad. Fifty-nine people were killed, most of them kar sevaks returning from a journey to Ayodhya. The Godhra fire provoked India's worst communal riots since Partition. Nearly 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed over the next few weeks.
The trial began two years ago and was conducted inside the Sabarmati Central jail. Judge P R Patel accepted that the Godhra tragedy was a planned conspiracy and not an accident - a view propagated by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and rejected by a commission set up by former Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Ninety four people were on trial. The convictions range from murder to criminal conspiracy, and the 33 people found guilty will be sentenced on Friday.
Not among them - the man pinpointed by two investigating committees as one of the main organizers of the attack. Maulvi Umarji, a local cleric, was described as the mastermind by a commission set up by the Gujarat government. It found that he had ordered his lieutenants to organize a mob and more than a 100 litres of petrol to attack compartment S6 where the kar sevaks were travelling. After allegations of biased investigation, the Supreme Court in 2008 appointed a Special Investigating Committee headed by KR Raghavan to study the Godhra carnage. It agreed with the earlier findings on the Maulvi. (
Watch: RK Raghavan on Godhra verdict)
But the court today ruled that there is not enough evidence against Umarji. (
Read: One of the key accused Maulvi Umarji acquitted)
In 2002, Maulana Husain Umarji was running a relief camp for victims of the Gujarat riots when he was arrested for masterminding the Godhra tragedy. His son today said, "The Special Investigation Team didn't probe correctly, because of which my old father was imprisoned for over eight years."
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