A special SIT court in Ahmedabad today convicted two of the five accused to the life sentence in the train burning at Godhra in 2002. The court also acquitted three others in the case. These persons were accused of burning the S-6 coach in 2002 at Godhra.
Six persons were absconding when the special court had first delivered its verdict against 94 accused in February 2011. They were arrested later and put on trial.
Fifty passengers, mostly kar sevaks, returning from Ayodhya were killed in S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express on February 27 triggering state-wide communal riots that left at least 1,000 dead.
Special judge H.C. Vora awarded the life sentence to Farooq Bhana and Imran Sheru after the prosecution established their role as conspirators in the burning of the two coaches. The court acquitted Hussain Suleman Mohan, Kasam Bhamedi and Faruk Dhantiya.
The five were apprehended in 2015-2016 and the trial was held at the court set up at the Sabarmati Central Jail.
Suleman Mohan was arrested from Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh, Bhamedi from the Dahod railway station in Gujarat, Dhantiya and Bhana from their houses in Godhra. Bhatuk was caught in Malegaon, Maharashtra.
Eight accused in the case are still absconding.
On March 1, 2011, the court convicted 31 people in the case. It later awarded death sentence to 11 of them and life imprisonment to 20 others.
However, the Gujarat High Court, in October 2017, commuted the death sentence of 11 to life imprisonment and upheld the punishment awarded by the SIT court to 20 others.
