The 2002 massacre: 23 convicted for Gujarat murders

Court acquits 23 others for lack of evidence.


Afp April 10, 2012

ANAND:


An Indian court convicted 23 people on Monday over the massacre of nearly two-dozen Muslims during religious rioting in Gujarat state in 2002 that left more than 2,000 dead.


Another 23 people were acquitted for lack of evidence in the case, in which rioters in the small Gujarati village of Ode bolted the doors of a house where Muslim families had taken refuge and then set it on fire.

Of the 23 who died in what became known as the “Ode massacre”, 18 were women.

The violence in Gujarat was triggered by the killing of nearly 60 Hindu pilgrims travelling in a train that was torched by a mob.

Some 31 Muslims were found guilty last year on murder and conspiracy charges for the train attack that sparked an anti-Muslim backlash.

Hindu mobs hungry for revenge rampaged through Muslim neighbourhoods in several cities across Gujarat during three days of bloodshed that witnessed some of India’s worst religious violence since independence from Britain in 1947.

More than 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, were hacked, beaten or burned to death.

The Ode massacre was one of several cases probed by a Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team.

The convicts will be sentenced on Thursday.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10th, 2012.

 

COMMENTS (14)

Freeman | 11 years ago | Reply

@Afridi: Look Kashmiris and lower cost people are enjoying Secular system in india. Gujrati Muslims Under the secular state and Hindu chief Minister Narendra Modi's terrorists killed over 2000 Muslims Men And Women plus looted and rapped 100's of Muslim girls.

This is a true face of Indian Secular state.

vasan | 11 years ago | Reply Billoo Bhaiya : Pl read your post again. "Indians haven’t progressed communally in their hatred for minorities," This is the most nonsense I have read about Indian progress about minorities, What minorities you are talking about, caste based or religion based or region based. On all counts, within our democratic frame works, we have implemented more "Affirmative action" programs than u can dream of. I am not talking about individual incidents. I am talking about state taking action to educate the masses about their rights and about the rights of the others. Have any parsi, christian, jain, buddhist or even Indian muslims complain about hatred ? There are riots and violence as a reaction to many incidents. That does not speak of communal hatred in the country as a whole. There is no constitution to declare "Ahmedis" as non muslims. there are no rules to declare your religion in the passports, there is no mafia to kidnap and convert young girls into islam, there are no way side killers to stop buses,identify the minority sects and shoot them point blank. There is no jisya tax charged by the majority to protect minorities. There is no grave of the nobel laureate marked as "First Nobel Laureate" after removing the "muslim" word. What kind of communal hatred u are talking about in India, The only communal hatred is the nonexistant one. Regarding your justice system, The one fact which will prove anything is better than Pakistani justice system is the running off by the justice who delivered the justice against the killer Mumtaz Qadri. Col Purohit is in jail, and your judge had to fly off to Saudi to protect himself and his family. That is enough my friend. By the way, 10 or 20 lines of comments are not good enough to judge your or my knowledge. I am not sure ET will post my message. Let us see
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