New Delhi: A day after a Gujarat court acquitted all the accused in the Naroda Gam case in which 11 people from the minority community were killed, Nationalist Congress chief Sharad Pawar on Friday questioned, “Then who killed those people?” ?” “Some years ago there were mass killings of minorities in Gujarat. Some leaders close were involved and the case was going on for so many days. Yesterday a court acquitted all the accused, so who killed them? How were they killed?” Pawar said. He said that power has been misused by those sitting in the government. Earlier on Thursday, a special court in Ahmedabad convicted all 68 accused, including BJP MLA Maya Kodnani, in the 2002 post-Godhra riots, Naroda Gam case acquitted.
On February 28, 2002, eleven people were killed in communal violence during a ‘bandh’ called to protest the burning of the Godhra train in the Naroda Gam area of Ahmedabad city, in which 58 passengers returning from Ayodhya were killed.
Also read: 2002 Gujarat riots: Court acquits all 68 accused in Naroda Gam massacre case
Along with Kodnani, other prominent accused included former Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Jaideep Patel. On April 16, the court of Principal Sessions Judge SK Bakshi had fixed April 20 as the date for pronouncing the verdict in the case and also directed the accused to remain present in the court.
Significantly, all the accused in the case are currently out on bail. Of the total 86 accused in the case, 18 died in the intervening period. Around 182 prosecution witnesses were examined during the trial.
Besides rioting and murder, 67-year-old Kodnani was also accused of criminal conspiracy and attempt to murder in the Naroda Gam case. It is worth noting that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had appeared as a defense witness for Kodnani in September 2017.