Indian court convicts 31 of murder, conspiracy in train fire
A court in India on Tuesday convicted 31 defendants of killing dozens of people by burning a train near the town of Godhra in 2002, an act that led to sectarian riots that caused the deaths of hundreds more.
A total of 94 people faced charges of criminal conspiracy and murder related to the fire, which killed 59. Sentencing was expected Friday. The rest of the defendants were acquitted.
Prosecutors said the defendants set fire to Coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express passenger train in Gujarat state on Feb. 27, 2002. Many of those in the coach were Hindu activists returning from a pilgrimage.
The fire led to some of the deadliest communal conflicts in recent Indian history. More than 1,200 people, mostly Muslims, died in the rioting.
Narendra Modi, the top elected official of Gujarat, was accused by critics of allowing Hindu mobs to attack Muslims. Modi has repeatedly denied the accusations.
The case in Tuesday’s ruling was among nearly a dozen taken over by the Supreme Court after the unrest in Gujarat. The court began hearing the case in 2009 after years of debate over whether a crime had occurred and after two hearings, one of which found that the fire was an accident, the other that it was premeditated.
Although in some of the related cases defendants have been free on bail, this one saw all 94 in custody for most of the last decade.
“The only way there might be closure is if something is done in all the cases,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“Two-thirds have been acquitted here. So if you take this forward, in cases where the perpetrators were Hindu, then there would need to be punishment there as well.”
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