AHMEDABAD (NNN-AGENCIES) -- A special court in Ahmedabad on Wednesday convicted 32 people, including a former BJP minister Maya Kodnani and Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi, in the Naroda Patia case, the biggest massacre of the post-Godhra riots.
The cases were filed under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including of murder and conspiracy. The maximum punishment is death, said a lawyer.
The court acquitted 29 people.
On February 28, 2002, 97 persons were killed in Naroda. As many as 94 bodies were found, of which 84 were identified. Three people are still missing.
The court had earlier kept the judgment for pronouncement on June 30, but was deferred till August 29.
The city crime branch nabbed 47 people and filed four charge sheets, but after the Supreme Court transferred the investigation to the special investigation team (SIT), 24 other accused were arrested including Kodnani.
In all, eight charge sheets were filed in this case. The trial began in 2009 and lasted for more than two years.
Special prosecutors Akhil Desai and Gaurang Vyas examined 327 witnesses and in all more than 500 documentary evidences were produced before the court. Those who deposed before the court were 173 relatives of victims who were eyewitnesses, 41 panch witnesses, 17 officials, 42 doctors, 44 cops, one forensic experts and nine others.
"More than 90 people lost their lives, mostly children and ladies, all of them were defenceless," public prosecutor Akhil Desai said, adding that he would push for the death penalty when sentences are handed down on Friday.
"If some of the accused are lucky enough to escape the death penalty, I will ask for life imprisonment, not for 14 years but for the rest of their lives," he told reporters.
Kodnani, who served as child and human development minister under Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi until her arrest in 2009, broke down in tears as the guilty verdict was pronounced, as did relatives waiting outside the court.
The violence was triggered by the deaths of nearly 60 Hindu pilgrims in a February 2002 train fire that was initially blamed on a mob of Muslims.
Hindus hungry for revenge rampaged through Muslim neighbourhoods across Gujarat in an orgy of violence that marked some of India's worst religious riots since independence from Britain in 1947.
Human rights groups say more than 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, were hacked, beaten or burned to death, while government figures put the death toll at about 1,000.
Last year, a court in Gujarat found 31 Muslims guilty of murder and conspiracy charges for causing the train fire, but a national enquiry in 2005 concluded that the blaze was an accident and cast doubt on much of the police evidence.
Wednesday's verdicts came after final arguments in April following a trial that saw 327 witnesses called to give evidence.
More than 100 others have been convicted for killing Muslims during the riots.
In 2008, the Supreme Court ordered the re-investigation of nine of the most sensitive incidents during the riots, including the initial train fire and the violence in Naroda Patiya.
Bajrangi, in an interview taped by news magazine Tehelka, confessed to helping orchestrate the killing in Naroda Patiya where homes were set on fire and some Muslims were set ablaze while hiding in a pit. -- NNN-AGENCIES
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