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2002 Gujarat riots
The skyline of Ahmedabad filled with smoke as buildings and shops are set on fire by rioting mobs
Date	February – March 2002
Location	Gujarat, India
Caused by	Godhra train burning
Methods	Rioting, pogrom, arson, mass rape, kidnapping, mass murder
Casualties
Death(s)	790 Muslims and 254 Hindus (official) 1,926 to 2,000+ total (other sources)
Injuries	2,500+

The Gujarat Riots (2002), also known as the 2002 Gujarat violence and the Gujarat pogrom, saw a period of great unrest and violence in the west India centered around the state of Gujarat. The three day riots, the aftermath of which streched along for years and had drastic political, cultural, and social effects across the state and even in areas outside those that were directly involved.

Following the initial incident, there were further outbreaks of violence in Ahmedabad for three months; statewide, outbreaks of violence against the Muslim population and divisive sentiments continued till the next year. Unmitigated judicial cases were seen as long as 2019, most famously the Bilkis Bano Case.

The at-time Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat Mr. Narendra Modi's failure to stop anti-Muslim violence led to a de facto travel ban imposed by the United Kingdom, United States, and several European nations, as well as the boycott of his provincial government by all but the most junior officials. His bans were said as result of a serious violation of religious freedom and allegations of state sponsored pogrom. As Modi rose to prominence in India, the UK and the EU lifted their bans in October 2012 and March 2013, respectively, and after his election as prime minister he was invited to Washington, in the US.

Not much verifiable evindece is available of the events including the government Special Investigation Team (SIT) report and the Concerned Citizen Tribunal (CCT) Reports, but the aftermath maily remains undocumented and a plethora of events remain unresolved.

Sources of Evidence

Special Investigation Team (SIT)

In March 2008, the Supreme Court ordered the setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to reinvestigate the Godhra train burning case and key cases of post-Godhra violence. The former CBI Director R. K. Raghavan was appointed to chair the Team. Christophe Jaffrelot notes that the SIT was not as independent as commonly believed. Other than Raghavan, half of the six members of the team were recruited from the Gujarat police, and the Gujarat High Court was still responsible for appointing judicial officers. The SIT made efforts to appoint independent prosecutors but some of them resigned due to their inability to function. No efforts were made to protect the witnesses and Raghavan himself was said to be an "absentee investigator," who spent only a few days every month in Gujarat, with the investigations being conducted by the remainder of the team.

Concerned Citizen Tribunal (CCT) Reports

The Concerned Citizen's Tribunal (CCT) was an eight-member committee headed by V. R. Krishna Iyer, retired Judge of Supreme Court, with P. B. Sawant, Hosbet Suresh, K. G. Kannabiran, Aruna Roy, K. S. Subramanian, Ghanshyam Shah and Tanika Sarkar making up the rest. It was appointed by Citizens for Peace and Justice (CPJ), a group formed by some social activists from Mumbai and Ahmedabad. It released its first reports in 2003.

CPJ members included Alyque Padamsee, Anil Dharkar, Cyrus Guzder,Ghulam Mohammed, I.M. Kadri, Javed Akhtar, Nandan Maluste, Titoo Ahluwalia, Vijay Tendulkar, Teesta Setalvad, Javed Anand; Indubhai Jani, Uves Sareshwala, Batuk Vora, Fr. Cedric Prakash, Najmal Almelkar.

Citizens for Peace and Justice was a group aiming for the persecution of the the Chief Minister of the state Narendra Modi, and is thus heavily biased. Moreover, it's member Teesta Setalvad is accused to have tampered with witness testimonies of various events.

Human Rights Watch Reports

The National Human Rights Commission(NHRC) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) made multiple reports looking into the human rights attrocities commited during the 2002 Gujarat massacre.

The Human Rights Watch goes ahead and implicates the state in the 2002 Gujarat Violence.

"What happened in Gujarat was not a spontaneous uprising, it was a carefully orchestrated attack against Muslims," said Smita Narula, senior South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch and author of the report. "The attacks were planned in advance and organized with extensive participation of the police and state government officials."The police were directly implicated in nearly all the attacks against Muslims that are documented in the 75-page report, "We Have No Orders to Save You': State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat."

But in many instances, police officials led the charge of murderous mobs, aiming and firing at Muslims who got in the way. Under the guise of offering assistance, some police officers led the victims directly into the hands of their killers. Panicked phone calls made to the police, fire brigades, and even ambulance services generally proved futile. Several witnesses reported being told by police: "We have no orders to save you."

Political, Socio-econmic and Geoplitical

Further promotion of communal violence

Following the 2002 Gujarat Riots saw an increase in promotion of communal violence and a general centiment of hatred against the muslim community. The same can be seen in the immediate statements of polliticians. Such can be seen as

• Bal Thackeray then leader of the Hindu nationalist group Shiv Sena said "Muslims are a cancer to this country. . . . Cancer is an incurable disease. Its only cure is operation. O Hindus, take weapons in your hands and remove this cancer from your roots."
• Pravin Togadia, international president of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), said "All Hindutva opponents will get the death sentence"
• Ashok Singhal, the then president of the VHP, has said that the violence in Gujarat was a "successful experiment" which would be repeated nationwide.T

This is but a small list of inflamatory speech and hatred that permeated for years after the event. Moverover, Following the violence thousands of Muslims were fired from their places of work, and those who tried to return home had to endure an economic and social boycott.

Militant Attacks

The militant group Indian Mujahideen have carried out attacks in revenge and to also act as a deterrent against further instances of mass violence against Muslims. They also claimed to have carried out the 2008 Delhi bombings in revenge for mistreatment of Muslims, referencing the destruction of the Babri Mosque and the violence in Gujarat 2002.

In September 2002 there was an attack on the Hindu temple of Akshardham, gunmen carried letters on their persons which suggested that it was a revenge attack for the violence that Muslims had undergone. In August 2002 Shahid Ahmad Bakshi, an operative for the militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba planned to assassinate Modi, Pravin Togadia of the VHP, and other members of the right wing nationalist movement to avenge the 2002 Gujarat violence.

Human Rights Overtakes

Human Rights Watch has accused the state of orchestrating a cover-up of their role in the violence. Human rights activists and Indian solicitors have urged that legislation be passed so that "communal violence is treated as genocide." This event is cited as an event strenthening the position of "communal violence as a genocide" by the Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch has also went ahead and classified the 2002 violence as a pogorm, accusing the local government in collusion with the riots, and its grave inaction.

Judicial

For more than two year there were various judicial cases stood at a standstill or saw volume of unreasonalbe acquittals in the state of Gujarat, with perpetrators hampering the process by bribing or intimidating witnesses and officials. Various names were deleted from police charge sheets and local judges were also seen to be biased.

In March 2008, The Supreme Court of India stepped in, transferring key cases to the Bombay High Court and ordering the police to reopen two thousand cases that had been previously closed. Following this direction, police identified nearly 1,600 cases for re-investigation, arrested 640 accused and launched investigations against forty police officers for their failures.

Till 2012 the criminal conviction rate of 2002 Gujarat communal violence cases ranges between 0.21% and 1.18%. Even at the high end of this range (1.18%), the percentages are well below levels for similar criminal prosecutions in Gujarat. For all communal violence cases completed in 2012, the conviction rate is 9.6% in cases involving riot‐related charges (83 convictions out of a total 863 such) in Gujarat while the figure for riot‐related cases ending in conviction across India as a whole is higher still at 18.5% (7,281 convictions out of a total 39,415 such cases completed in 2012). Moreover, for the cases specific to the 2002 Gujarat communal violence‐related in comparision to all other riot‐related cases in India (over a period of 10 years from 2002 to 2012) there is over 15‐fold difference in conviction rates.

As of April 2013, 249 convictions had been secured of 184 Hindus and 65 Muslims. Thirty-one of the Muslim convictions were for the massacre of Hindus in Godhra. Out of the 9 cases for which a special investigation team was appointed and the cases moved to the supereme court 8 have been resolved

Godhra train-burning case

The Godhra Train Burning was an incident that occurred on the morning of 27 February 2002, in which 58 Hindu pilgrims karsevaks returning from Ayodhya, were killed in a fire inside the Sabarmati Express train near the Godhra railway station in the Indian state of Gujarat. The event is widely perceived as the trigger for the Gujarat riots that followed, which resulted in widespread loss of life, destruction of property and homelessness.

Arrests

By 28 February 2002, 51 people had been arrested for the incident on charges of arson, rioting and looting. The charge-sheet filed by the SIT, which ran to more than 500 pages, stated that 59 people were killed in the S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express when a mob of around 1540 unidentified people attacked it near Godhra railway station. The 68 people accused in the charge-sheet included 57 accused of stoning and torching the train. The charge-sheet also stated that a mob attacked the police, prevented the fire brigade from approaching the burning train, and stormed the train for a second time. 11 others were charged with being part of this mob. Initially, 107 people were charged, five of whom died while the case was still pending in court. Eight others were juveniles, who were tried by a separate court. As many as 253 witnesses were examined during the trial and over items of 1500 documentary evidences were presented to the court.

Verdict

In February 2011, the trial court convicted 31 people and acquitted 63 others, saying the incident was a planned conspiracy. The convictions were based on the murder and conspiracy provisions of Sections 302 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code respectively and under Sections 149, 307, 323, 324, 325, 326, 332, 395, 397, and 436 of the Code and some sections of the Railway Act and Police Act. The death penalty was awarded to 11 convicts; those believed to have been present at a meeting held the night before the incident where the conspiracy was formed, and those who, according to the court, had actually entered the coach and poured petrol before setting it afire. Twenty others were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Maulvi Saeed Umarji, who was believed by the SIT to be the prime conspirator, was acquitted along with 62 other accused for lack of evidence. The convicted filed appeals in the Gujarat High Court. The state government also challenged the trial court's decision to acquit 61 persons in the High Court and sought death sentences for 20 convicts awarded life imprisonment in the case. Gujarat High Court changed the death sentence of 11 accused to life imprisonment. All 31 accused found guilty in 2011 were given life imprisonment. 63 accused who were acquitted in 2011 by trial court, were acquitted once again by high court. The court asked the state government and railways to pay 10 lakh compensation to the victims.

Best Bakery case

The Best Bakery case (also called Tulsi Bakery case) was a legal case involving the burning down of the Best Bakery, a small outlet in the Hanuman Tekri area in Vadodara, Gujarat, India, on 1 March 2002. During the incident, a mob targeted the Sheikh family who ran the bakery and had taken refuge inside, resulting in the deaths of 14 (11 Muslims including family members and 3 Hindu employees of the bakery). Initially, All the 21 accused were acquitted by the court due to shoddy police work and issues with evidence. It was the first case to be tried with respect to the Godhra riots.

Initial Trials

In 2003, the case was tried at a fast court by the Vadodara sessions court judge Hemantsinh U Mahida. It lasted less than two months, hinging on the first hand evidence presented in two FIR that had been presented - that of Raizkhan Amin Mohammed Pathan and of Zaheera Sheikh. In addition, evidence was provided by a large number of witnesses whose evidence was secondary (indirect or hearsay).

The day after the attack, Zaheera Sheikh filed the first informant complaint. Sheikh, a 19-year-old during the incident, was a key and notable witness. Zaheera recounted the incident for countless publications, however, as per documents presented to the court, Zaheera's FIR was registered by the police on 4 March 2002. The defence purported that only the FIR that was registered on FIR of 1 March 2002 (by Raizkhan Amin Mohammed Pathan) should be admissible under Section 60 of the Indian evidence act. The case also saw a plethora, as many as 37 of the 73 of witnesses including including Sheikh, turn hostile. It was later alleged that they had received threats to their lives, including from Madhu Shrivastav, a BJP MLA and his brother Pappu, a Congress councillor. Other witnesses gave garbled and self-contradictory witness account, the defence was able to get their statements dismissed. As a result of all these, the prosecution's case collapsed in court and all of the 21 accused were acquitted. The judgment was delivered on 27 June 2003 and said, "It was proved beyond doubt that a violent mob had attacked the bakery and killed 12 persons. However, there was no legally acceptable evidence to prove that any of the accused presented before the court had committed the crime." The judgment was critical of the police for delay in registering FIR and for not investigating the incident properly and harassing innocent people, including the accused.

Retrial and verdicts

After press expressed outrage and NHRC Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court a retrial at the Greater sessions court at Mazgaon, Mumbai outside of Gujarat. These witnesses included Tufel Ahmed, Raees Khan Pathan and Shehzad Khan, who worked at the bakery and witnessed the events. Shieikh once again commited perjury against Teesta Setalvad but later admitted lying in court and not testifying against the accused having been threatened by senior figures in the local BJP body, by now a Supreme Court-appointed committee has indicted her as a "self-condemned liar" falling to "inducements" by "certain persons" to give "inconsistent" statements during the trial of the case.

In February 2006, a court in India convicted nine of the 21 people of murder, sentencing them to life imprisonment. It acquitted 8 others, while issuing warrants for the arrest of four missing persons. On 9 July 2012, the Bombay High Court, upheld the life sentences of four accused, Sanjay Thakkar, Bahadursingh Chauhan, Sanabhai Baria and Dinesh Rajbhar on the basis of four eyewitness accounts, who were injured bakery employees and identified the accused. It acquitted five accused, Rajubhai Baria, Pankaj Gosavi, Jagdish Rajput, Suresh alias Lalo Devjibhai Vasava and Shailesh Tadvi, for lack of evidence.

Bilkis Bano case

After police dismissed the case against her assailants, Bilkis Bano approached the National Human Rights Commission of India and petitioned the Supreme Court seeking a reinvestigation. The Supreme Court granted the motion, directing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the investigation. CBI appointed a team of experts from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) Delhi and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) under the guidance and leadership of Professor T. D. Dogra of AIIMS to exhume the mass graves to established the identity and cause of death of victims. The team successfully located and exhumed the remains of victims. The trial of the case was transferred out of Gujarat and the central government was directed to appoint a public prosecutor. Charges were filed in a Mumbai court against nineteen people as well as six police officials and a government doctor over their role in the initial investigations. In January 2008, eleven men were sentenced to life imprisonment for rapes and murders and a policeman was convicted of falsifying evidence. The Bombay High Court upheld the life imprisonment of eleven men convicted for the gang rape of Bilkis Bano and murder of her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots on 8 May 2017. The court also set aside the acquittal of the remaining seven accused in the case, including Gujarat police officers and doctors of a government hospital, who were charged with suppressing and tampering with evidence. Later, the final verdict came on 23 April 2019 as the Supreme Court ordered the Gujarat government to pay Bilkis Yakoob Rasool Bano ₹50 lakh as compensation, a government job and housing in the area of her choice.

Ode Village case

A few days after the train burning incident at Godhra took place, a mob of Hindus led by political activists attacked dozens of Muslim homes in Gujarat’s Ode village. When the Muslims took refuge in a house, the mob set it on fire. Twenty-seven Muslims were killed in three separate incidents at Ode village; 26 were burnt alive on March 1, 2002, in the Piravali Bhagol area and Mal Bhagol area and one more was killed on the streets the next day in the Surivali Bhagol area in the village.

Only two bodies were recovered from the house while the rest were so severely burnt that they couldn’t be identified. The police later declared them missing. Two FIRs relating to the incidents of the first day were filed. Forty-one accused persons were arrested in both cases but were granted bail almost immediately. In 2011, 23 accused persons were convicted out of which 18 were given life sentences and the remaining were sentenced to imprisonment of seven years for offences punishable under sections 302, 307, 120B, 149, 435 436 427 and 440 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

In 2018, the high court upheld the conviction of 19 persons, including 14 who had been sentenced to life imprisonment. However, The Supreme Court on February 2020 granted bail to 14 convicts in the Ode village massacre, who had appealed against the high court order upholding their conviction.

Sardarpura case

Thirty-three persons of a minority community, comprising more than 20 women and children, were burnt to death by a rioting mob on March 1, 2002 near the Sardarpura area in Gujarat.

The Sardarpura massacre case was one of the nine cases probed by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team headed by the former CBI Director R.K. Raghavan.

In 2011, a special trial court convicted 31 persons for the brutal massacre and awarded life imprisonment to them. The convicts had challenged the trial court verdict before the High Court in 2012. The Gujarat High Court on October 20, 2016 upheld the conviction of 17 persons while acquitting 14 persons, who were previously convicted by a trial court, in the post-Godhra Sardarpura massacre case.

However, The Supreme Court on February 2020 granted bail 17 convicts in the 2002 Sardarpura massacre. The Supreme Court granted bail on condition that they do not go back to the state but instead stay out of state where they would get jobs and also engage in "religious and social service".

Dipda Darwaza case

On 28 February, Rioters set a building on fire in in the Dipda Darwaza area of Mehsana district, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Ahmadabad, the main city in Gujarat state. Thirty-three Muslims, including 20 women, who had taken shelter there were burned alive.

On 9 November 2011, a court in Ahmedabad sentenced thirty-one Hindus to life imprisonment for murdering dozens of Muslims by burning the building in which they took shelter. Forty-one other Hindus were acquitted of murder charges due to a lack of evidence. Twenty-two further people were convicted for attempted murder on 30 July 2012, while sixty-one others were acquitted.

Naroda Patiya Massacre

The Naroda Patiya massacre took place on 28 February 2002 at Naroda, in Ahmedabad, India, during the 2002 Gujarat riots. 97 Muslims were killed by a mob of approximately 5,000 people, organised by the Bajrang Dal, a wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, and allegedly supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party which was in power in the Gujarat State Government. The massacre at Naroda occurred during the bandh (strike) called by Vishwa Hindu Parishad a day after the Godhra train burning. The riot lasted over 10 hours, during which the mob looted, stabbed, sexually assaulted, gang-raped and burnt people individually and in groups. After the conflict, a curfew was imposed in the state and army troops were called in to contain further violence.

The communal violence at Naroda was deemed "the largest single case of mass murder" during the 2002 Gujarat riots; it accounted for the greatest number of deaths during a single event. Survivors faced socio-economic problems; many were left homeless, orphaned and injured.

Investigation

As the investigations began, some victims reported that the Gujarat Police "didn't cooperate well" and declined to lodge a First Information Report against some people. Later the police filed all complaints and presented their first report. The police accused and arrested 46 persons in the case; however, the investigation was criticised by the special court and was considered "unreliable as the investigator's propriety in recording the statements had itself been rebutted."

In 2008, the Supreme Court of India directed that the case be transferred from police investigation to a committee appointed by the court, the Special Investigation Team, because the police had become one of the riot cases. Taking into account the findings about telephone records of various activists, Kodnani and other major leaders were included in the report for the first time. The Special Investigation Team's findings added 24 more names to the 46 people arrested by the police. Before the trial began, 6 of the accused died. In 2009 the trial started, during which three of the accused died, thus the final report covered 61 people.

The report said that Kodnani, Bajrangi and other leaders had led violence as well as "instigating the mob". Kodnani's telephone records revealed that she had made calls to the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) on the day of the massacre and that her telephone was located at places where the violence occurred. She had also contacted numerous police officials, especially K.K. Mysorewala, the police inspector in charge of Naroda at the time of the massacre. Her logs also revealed that she had received calls from the CMO and other police officers, the reasons for which are unknown.

Verdicts

The first verdict in the trial case was handed down on 29 August 2012 by Judge Jyotsna Yagnik. The special trial court convicted Maya Kodnani, the sitting Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Naroda and former Minister for Women and Child Development of Gujarat, and Bajrang Dal politician Babu Bajrangi under Indian Penal Code Section 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 302 (murder). It also convicted 30 other people of murder, criminal conspiracy and other criminal charges, and acquitted 29 accused, giving them the benefit of the doubt as there was lack of evidence against them. Kodnai was the first woman, MLA and minister to be convicted in the Gujarat riot case. Suresh Dedawala (Richard) alias Langado and accomplices were convicted of rape and murder along with accomplices.

The prosecution requested the death penalty for all the convicts. Sentencing took place on 31 August: Kodani was given a 28-year prison term, and received two sentences; the first for 10 years under Indian Penal Code Section 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and the second for 18 years under Section 302 (murder) and others. Her sentences are set to run consecutively, making a total of 28 years. Bajrangi received life imprisonment. Of the rest of the 30 convicted, 22 were sentenced to a minimum of 14 years and 7 to a minimum of 21 years in prison; they included Naresh Chara, Morli Sindhi, Haresh Rathod, Suresh Langado, Premchand Tiwari, Manojbhai Sindhi Kukrani and Bipin Panchal. One of the convicted, Suresh alias Shahjad Nekalkar, absconded and his sentencing was deferred.

The original case in the Trial court had 61 accused. In August 2012, the special SIT court in its judgement found 32 guilty and acquitted 29. The accused appealed Gujarat High court. On 20 April 2018 judgment on the appeals, the High court convicted 16 persons, including Babu Bajrangi. High Court acquitted 18 others including former BJP Minister Maya Kodnani, who was tried as the main accused by the trial court. Out of 13 of these convicts, three were sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment, nine were handed 21 years of rigorous imprisonment and one was sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Naroda Gam Massacre

In the aftermath of the 2002 riots, many victims’ families left Naroda Gam in a bid to escape the ghosts of the gruesome night of February 28, 2002 when 11 persons were killed. This is the only of the nine cases that were being tried under the Supreme Court’s supervision, where the trial is still going on.

Former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani is an accused in this case along with Babu Bajrangi and VHP leader Jaideep Patel, all of whom are out on bail.

The trial is in its final stages with the submission of final arguments underway. In July 2018, the Naroda Gam trial was the last one of the nine cases which had been ordered to be monitored by the Supreme Court-appointed SIT of 2008. The same month the SC had announced that it would no longer monitor the cases, and asked the SIT to take them to their logical end, while granting the special court time till October 16, 2018, to complete the trial. This did not happen and while the victims could have filed an application at the SC, seeking the apex court’s supervision, that too did not happen.

Gulbarg Society Massacre

The Gulbarg Society massacre took place on 28 February 2002, during the 2002 Gujarat riots, when a crowd started stone pelting the Gulbarg Society, a Muslim neighbourhood in Chamanpura, Ahmedabad. Most of the houses were burnt, and at least 35 victims, including a former Congress Member of Parliament, Ehsan Jafri, were burnt alive, while 31 others went missing after the incident, later presumed dead, bringing the total deaths to 69.

The Case

Zakiya Jafri, wife of Ehsan Jafri, who was burnt alive on the day, first made the complaint on 8 June 2006 alleging that the police had not registered the FIRs against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and 62 others including several ministers and alleging a conspiracy to allow the massacre of Muslims, which involved instructing policemen and bureaucrats not to respond to pleas for help from Muslims being attacked during the riots. The complaint included VHP leaders Praveen Togadia and Jaideep Patel, DGP of the state PC Pande for abetting the riots. She then approached the Gujarat High Court with her complaint, which on 3 November 2007, refused to entertain her plea, and instead asked her to present the case before magistrate's court. Subsequently, she approached the Supreme Court of India, which on 27 April 2009 appointed a five-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by R. K. Raghavan, a former head of the CBI, to investigate into these cases, and asked the SIT to look into her complaint of alleged collusion of the state machinery and the rioters over the two days of Gujarat riots.

In its closure report filed in the Zakia Jafri case, the SIT submitted that Jafri was killed because he provoked a "violent mob" that had assembled "to take revenge of Godhra incident from the Muslims". It further submitted that Jafri fired at the mob and "the provoked mob stormed the society and set it on fire."

R B Sreekumar, who was Additional DG Intelligence at the time, deposed before a commission that ministers and police were "deliberately inactive during the riots" and two eyewitnesses Roopa Modi and Imtiyaz Pathan testified against Modi in the trial court. Imtiaz who lost six members of his family during the massacre, was the one to give the first eyewitness account in the trial which started in September 2009, after being held up for 7 years. He told the court that when a mob started gathering outside Gulbarg Society on 28 February, MP Jafri called Chief Minister Narendra Modi for help, yet the police refused to come for help. He identified 20 of the 100 accused, arrested in the case. In all, the eyewitness who appeared before the SIT in December 2009, namely, Imtiyaz Pathan, Saeedkhan Pathan, Roopa Mody, Saira Sandhi and Rafiq Pathan named joint commissioner of police MK Tandon and Meghaninagar police inspector ND Parmar, Manish Patel alias Splendor, Mahendra Pukhraj, Jagroopsinh Rajput, Inio Harijan, Babu Marwadi and Rajesh Jinger, a constable residing in the same area, as accused.

Verdict

Gulbarg Society Massacre trial restarted at a special court with Supreme Court monitored Special Investigation Team acting as prosecution. On June 18, 2016, Court convicted 24 persons. 11 convicted for life, 1 convicted for 10 years and the remaining 12 given seven years of rigorous imprisonment. The judgement termed the killings "unfortunate" and the "darkest day in the civil society of Gujarat", but reiterated that "it was the private firing by Shri Ehsan Jafri that acted as a catalyst and which infuriated the mob to such an extent that the mob went out of control…". This was despite the fact that survivors of the Gulbarg massacre said that Jafri fired his gun only in self defence after the violent mob started attacking the complex.

Dismissing the allegations of a "larger conspiracy" behind the post-Godhra riots, including the Gulberg Society massacre, involving politicians and government machinery, special designated judge P B Desai said in his judgment that "the controversy, in my opinion, has been laid to rest and is required to be given its due burial". Judgement further stated that "…much attempts have been made to rake up this issue time and again, applications were tendered in the course of the present proceedings and independent proceedings have been initiated to seek reliefs under Section 319 of CrPC to arraign as co-accused senior police officers and other government officials, and such proceedings have been found to be without merit by all courts at all levels, including the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India.......no material has been considered even prima facie worthwhile to arraign such senior police officers and government officials and politicians in power as accused in a number of proceedings, including the present proceedings, and in my opinion, therefore, it would be unsafe and improper to even have a further discussion on this aspect.".

Persecution of Teesta Setalvad

Teesta Setalvad is an Indian civil rights activist, journalist and the secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), an organisation formed to fight for justice for the victims of communal violence in the state of Gujarat in 2002. CJP is a co-petitioner seeking a criminal trial of Narendra Modi, the then Chief Minister of Gujarat and the current Prime minister of India and sixty-two other politicians and government officials for alleged complicity in the Gujarat riots of 2002. Four of the accused since then were charge-sheeted, of whom Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi have already been convicted. Maya Kodnani was acquitted by the Gujarat High Court in April 2018.

Judicial allegations

A private organisation in India can accept donations from abroad only if it is registered under the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act. Teesta's Sabrang Communications and Publishing (not registered under FCRA) had between 2004 and 2014 accepted $290,000 from the US-based Ford Foundation without the government approval .The Ford Foundation, one of the largest international donors, was put on the watch-list following a Gujarat government complaint that it was interfering in India's "internal affairs" and encouraging Teesta's NGOs to promote "communal disharmony".

Teesta's NGO is also accused of misappropriation of funds and subjected to numerous audits and surprise raids.

Allegation that Teesta is being framed and hounded

Though cases against Teesta are still in courts it has been suggested by some journalists that Teesta is being framed and hounded by Gujarat Police because of her criticism of Narendra Modi, It is alleged that allegations of corruption against Teesta are concocted . In a signed article in Outlook magazine, published in March 2015, Indira Jaising wrote that Teesta's organization Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) did creditable work in obtaining convictions for 119 people (including a Minister) for participating in the Gujarat riots. Jaising goes on to say that :

The case against Teesta smacks of a plan to deter her from assisting victims of the Gujarat 2002 riots. The financial dealings of Teesta and CJP can be probed, but the disproportionality of the legal process, the timing, and the insistence of the prosecution on custodial interrogation, smack of vendetta.

Persecution of Sanjiv Bhatt

Sanjiv Bhatt is a former Indian Police Service officer from Gujarat. He is known for his role in filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court of India against the then Chief Minister of the Government of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, concerning Modi's alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots. He claimed to have attended a meeting, during which Modi allegedly asked top police officials to let Hindus vent out their anger against the Muslims. However, the Special Investigation Team appointed by the Supreme Court of India concluded that Bhatt did not attend this meeting, and dismissed his allegations.

In 2015, Bhatt was removed from the police service, on the ground of "unauthorised absence". In October 2015, the Supreme Court quashed Bhatt's plea for constituting a special investigation team (SIT) for cases filed against him by Gujarat Government. The court lifted a stay on his trial in these cases and asked him to face prosecution.

Affidavit against Narendra Modi

After the 2002 riots, a group of social activists had formed the Concerned Citizens Tribunal to analyze the riots. Gujarat's home minister Haren Pandya allegedly told this tribunal that Modi had organised a meeting at the Chief Minister's residence on 27 February 2002, after the Godhra train burning, in which over 50 Hindu pilgrims died. According to Pandya, in this meeting, Modi had asked the police officials not to come in the way of "the Hindu backlash". Pandya had named several police officials who attended this meeting; Bhatt was not among these. Pandya was later assassinated by unidentified men.

On 14 April 2011, 9 years after the riots, Bhatt filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court of India, making similar allegations. According to Bhatt, at this meeting on 27 February 2002, Modi asked top police officials to let Hindus "vent out their anger" against the Muslims. He said that the meeting determined to bring the bodies of the Hindu pilgrims to Ahmedabad before cremation and that he had cautioned against this, fearing religious violence. Described as a whistleblower both by some of the Indian media and some pressure groups, Bhatt has since referred to the events as "state-sponsored riots" and has alleged both that Modi told his officials to be "indifferent" towards rioters and said that Muslims needed to be "taught a lesson".

Arrest

In his affidavit, Bhatt mentioned six witnesses, who could testify his presence in the alleged meeting held at Modi's residence. He claimed that he had travelled to Modi's residence in the official car of K. Chakravarthi, which was being driven by Tarachand Yadav; Bhatt's driver Constable KD Panth followed them in Bhatt's official car. Bhatt's affidavit was signed by KD Panth, whose statement supported Bhatt's presence at the alleged meeting. On 24 June 2011, Panth filed an FIR against Bhatt, alleging that Bhatt had threatened him and forced him to sign a false affidavit. Chakravarthi also denied that Bhatt was present in the meeting. However, Tarachand Yadav supported Bhatt, stating that he had driven Bhatt to Modi's bungalow, and that Panth had been with them. He also supported Bhatt's claim that he travelled there with Chakravarthy.

On 30 September 2011, Bhatt was arrested, following an investigation into KD Panth's FIR. Bhatt alleged that Panth was following "diktats" from the Modi government, an allegation denied by Panth. Bhatt's arrest was condemned by the Congress leaders and human rights activists, who accused the Modi government of persecuting Bhatt. The arrest gave rise to protests at places such as Ahmedabad, Delhi and Bangalore. The Gujarat IPS Officers Association also expressed their support for Bhatt and his family, although this was far from being unanimous and was downplayed by various senior officers. Bhatt has referred to being harassed by members of the Gujarat police.

Persecution

On 17 October 2011, Bhatt was granted bail by a local court in Ahmedabad, on condition that he continue to cooperate with investigations into the allegations laid against him. His bail application had been opposed by the Modi government. The Supreme Court suspended the case in April 2012, with Bhatt arguing that the arrest was "politically motivated". Bhatt asserted that both FIRs filed against him were politically motivated and should be probed by a Supreme Court monitored investigative team to uncover abuse of power by the Modi government. On 13 October 2015, a bench dismissed Bhatt's plea and ordered a speedy trial to be conducted in both cases. The Supreme Court on 14 October 2015 cleared the way for criminal prosecution of sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt for allegedly hacking the email account of the then additional advocate general of Gujarat Tushar Mehta and for forcing a junior police official to file a false affidavit in a Gujarat riots case.

In November 2012, Bhatt and six other policemen were charged with murder in the 1990 custodial death case of Prabhudas Vaishnani.. The Gujarat government had originally appealed the court to drop charges against Bhatt and other policemen in the 1990 custodial death case. However, after Bhatt's affidavit against Modi, the Government withdrew its application, and the court initiated criminal proceedings against the policemen. On 20 June 2019, he was sentenced to life in relation to this case.

Other Notable Verdicts

Avdhootnagar case

According to the prosecution, a group of Muslims, who had earlier deserted their homes for fear of attack, had returned on that day under police protection to take away some of their essential luggage to the relief camps where they were staying. Under cover of darkness, they were loading the tempos they had brought with them when the local Hindus realised what was happening. A mob of about 5,000 people collected in the area and started pelting stones at them. While some of the Muslims managed to escape after sustaining injuries, two youths riding on a motorbike were chased by the mob and were caught on the outskirts of Avdhootnagar. They were allegedly done to death by some in the mob carrying swords and dharias.

In 2005, the Vadodara fast-track court acquitted 108 people accused of murdering two youths during a mob attack on a group of displaced Muslims returning under police escort to their homes in Avdhootnagar. The court passed strictures against the police for failing to protect the people under their escort and failing to identify the attackers they had seen.

Danilimda case

On 12 April, there was a clash between a group of Hindus and Muslims, in Danilimda locality, in the state's commercial capital, Ahmedabad. The two sides threw stones and petrol bombs at each other. It was during this clash that Mustaq Ahmed Sheikh opened fire on the crowd. One Hindu was killed and another was wounded in the firing.

The judge sentenced the main accused to 10 years in jail and also fined him 5,000 rupees. Eight other accused were given a year-and-a-half in prison. The court acquitted 25 people in this case for want of sufficient evidence against them.

Eral case

The trial related to an attack on the family of a Muslim man, Sheikh Firoz Bhai, in the village of Eral, the Eral massacre case left seven people dead in the aftermath of the Godhra riots. The massacre took place on March 3, 2002 when assailants targeted villages, including Eral in the interior of Panchmahal district in Central Gujarat following the Godhra riots.

Those found guilty by the sessions court in the western city of Godhra included leaders of the hard-line movement, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Chandradeep Parmar, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was also convicted. There were 40 defendants, 29 were acquitted by the court.

Eight persons were sentenced to life, three of them were also convicted for having gangraped two minor girls by a Godhra sessions court. Three others were convicted on charges of looting and violence and were sentenced to three years imprisonment The police had filed three chargesheets in the case on the complaint of Madinabibi Sheikh, who was also the key witness.

Pavagadh and Dhikva case

This was a case inclusive the series of accuitals following the aftermath of 2002 Gujarat Riots. The accused were arrested from Pavagadh and Dhikva villages of Halol taluka for rioting and burning properties during the riots on February 28, 2002. A Godhra court acquitted 52 accused in a post-Godhra riot case of Halol taluka, Panchmahal district, Gujarat for want of sufficient evidence. This accuital came in April 2006, 4 years after the fact.

Social

A Systematic Opression of Women

An international fact-finding committee formed of all women international experts from US, UK, France, Germany and Sri Lanka reported, "sexual violence was being used as a strategy for terrorizing women belonging to minority community in the state."

It is estimated that at least two-hundred and fifty girls and women were gang raped and then burned to death. Children were force fed petrol and then set on fire, pregnant women were gutted and then had their unborn child's body shown to them. Violence against women also included them being stripped naked, violated with objects, and then killed. According to Kalpana Kannabiran the rapes were part of a well-organized, deliberate and pre-planned strategy, and which facts place the violence into the categories of political pogrom and genocide. Other acts of violence against women included acid attacks, beatings and the killing of women who were pregnant. Children were also killed in front of their parents. George Fernandes in a discussion in parliament on the violence caused widespread furor in his defense of the state government, saying that this was not the first time that women had been violated and raped in India.

Children were killed by being burnt alive and those who dug the mass graves described the bodies interred within them as "burned and butchered beyond recognition." Children and infants were speared and held aloft before being thrown into fires. Describing the sexual violence perpetrated against Muslim women and girls, Renu Khanna writes that the survivors reported that it "consisted of forced nudity, mass rapes, gang-rapes, mutilation, insertion of objects into bodies, cutting of breasts, slitting the stomach and reproductive organs, and carving of Hindu religious symbols on women's body parts." The Concerned Citizens' Tribunal, characterised the use of rape "as an instrument for the subjugation and humiliation of a community." Testimony heard by the committee stated that:

A chilling technique, absent in pogroms unleashed hitherto but very much in evidence this time in a large number of cases, was the deliberate destruction of evidence. Barring a few, in most instances of sexual violence, the women victims were stripped and paraded naked, then gang-raped, and thereafter quartered and burnt beyond recognition. . . . The leaders of the mobs even raped young girls, some as young as 11 years old . . . before burning them alive. . . . Even a 20-day-old infant, or a fetus in the womb of its mother, was not spared.

Vandana Shiva stated that "Young boys have been taught to burn, rape and kill in the name of Hindutva."