VADODARA: Three of six men arrested as teenagers for the 2002 Godhra train burning were sentenced Tuesday to three years in jail, 14 years after 31 others were convicted for the incident that led to Gujarat’s worst communal riots.
Although the convicts are now 40, their identities and other details still can’t be disclosed, their lawyers said. The Juvenile Justice Board in Godhra has acquitted two of the other suspects tried as minors, while a third died during the course of the trial.
The convicts were 17 when the Sabarmati Express was set ablaze at Godhra railway station on Feb 27, 2002, killing 59 kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya. While they remained on trial, a sessions court convicted 31 other suspects in the case in 2011. The judge sentenced 11 of them to death and 20 to life imprisonment. Gujarat HC later commuted the death sentences to life terms.
Defence counsel Salman Charkha, who along with fellow lawyer Hemang Soni represented the six suspects tried as juveniles, told reporters that individual chargesheets filed against them were consolidated on the court’s orders.
The two who were acquitted have spent around five years in prison and juvenile homes.