Godhra: A court docket in Gujarat has acquitted all 26 individuals accused of gangrape and homicide of greater than a dozen members of a minority neighborhood in separate incidents in Kalol throughout communal riots in 2002, for need of proof within the 20-year-old case.
Of the whole 39 accused, 13 died throughout the case pendency and the trial in opposition to them was abated.
The court docket of Additional Sessions Judge Leelabhai Chudasama at Halol in Panchmahal district on Friday acquitted 26 individuals for the offences of homicide, gangrape and rioting for need of proof. “As many as 13 out of a total 39 accused in the case had died during the pendency of the trial,” the court docket mentioned within the order.
The accused individuals had been a part of a mob that went on a rampage within the communal riots that broke out on March 1, 2002 throughout a bandh name given after the Sabarmati practice burning incident in Godhra on (*26*) 27. An FIR was lodged in opposition to the accused at Kalol police station on March 2, 2002.
The prosecution examined 190 witnesses and 334 documentary proof in help of its argument, however the court docket mentioned there have been contradictions within the accounts of witnesses, and they didn’t help the prosecution’s argument.
On March 1, 2002, a mob of greater than 2,000 folks from two totally different communities clashed with sharp weapons and inflammable objects in Kalol metropolis within the Gandhinagar district.
They broken retailers and set them on fireplace. A person who was injured in police firing and being rushed to the hospital was burnt alive together with a tempo. The mob attacked and killed one other man popping out of a mosque and burnt his physique contained in the mosque.
In one other incident, 38 folks fleeing Delol village and coming in direction of Kalol had been attacked and 11 of them had been burnt alive. A lady was gang raped when she and others had been making an attempt to flee, as per the FIR.
