Godhra verdict today; Gujarat on alert

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Ahmedabad:  A special court in Ahmedabad will give its verdict in the 2002 Godhra train burning case today. The court will pronounce its judgment on the role of 80 people accused of conspiring and burning the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002. Fifty-nine people, mostly Kar Sewaks returning from Ayodhya, were killed in the incident.

The verdict will be pronounced at Ahmedabad's Sabarmati Central Jail, where the trial was held.

A mob of around 1,000 people had targeted the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express at the Godhra station in Gujarat on that February day in 2002. The death of the 59 people triggered the worst communal riots in the history of Independent India. Close to 1,200 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in these riots in Gujarat.

Initial police investigations indicated that it could have been a spontaneous riot situation, but a Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up later claimed that the act was pre-planned.

This first SIT, led by IPS officer Rakesh Asthana, said in its report that a cleric, Maulvi Umarji, had ordered four lieutenants to mobilise a mob at the station to target the S-6 bogey that was carrying Kar Sewaks.

In saying so, the SIT report backed Chief Minister Narendra Modi's statements on that day calling it a "pre-planned massacre". Modi has been accused of making those statements to create anti-Muslim sentiment.

There were allegations that investigations were biased both in the Godhra case and in the Gujarat riots cases, and the Supreme Court finally ordered another SIT investigation in 2008, this time under RK Raghavan. On Godhra, this SIT too endorsed the findings of the earlier SIT.

Trial in the case began in June 2009 with the framing of the charges against the accused, who have been in Sabarmati jail since 2002. All the accused in the case have been charged with criminal conspiracy and murder.

Designated Judge PR Patel, who completed hearing the arguments of the prosecution and the defence in September last year, will pronounce judgement in the sensitive case today.

After completion of the hearing last September, the verdict could not be given as there was a Supreme Court stay on it. This stay was lifted on October 26, 2010.