Gulbarg verdict: ‘Just 12 guilty? This is not justice,’ says Zakia Jafri

The special SIT court on Friday awarded life imprisonment to 11 convicts in the 2002 Gulbarg Society massacre case.

A mob killed 69 people in Ahmedabad’s Gulbarg Housing Society on February 28, 2002.

Ehsan Jafri was one of the 69 persons killed during the 2002 communal violence in Ahmadabad’s Gulberg society. Seven years later, 30 of the missing were declared dead.

Expressing disappointment over the quantum of punishment by the special court senetencing 11 to life and sparing others with few years in jail, Congress lawmaker Ehsan Jafri’s widow Zaki Jafri on Friday vowed to continue her legal battle and file an appeal in higher court.

The Mob dragged out the Ex-Congress MP Ahsan Jafri and burnt to death. Of the eighteen houses which were burnt, only one has been repaired.

He told the prosecution, which had demanded death for all the 24 convicts, that the accused were not a “menace to society” and deserved a “chance to reform”. The incident had occurred a day after 58 “kar sevaks” returning from Ayodhya were killed in Godhra.

March 2010: The trial was put on hold because of the resignation of the special prosecutor and his assistant.

Of the 66 accused named by the SIT in the case, nine are behind bars, while others are out on bail. The case was among nine others from during the riots that were investigated by a Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team.

“Eleven people were given life imprisonment since they were convicted in serious offences”.

March 2012: The Ahmedabad Metropolitan Court rejects Zakia Jafri’s plea to making public the SIT report.

The verdict came after 14 years.

Jafri’s son, Tanvir, said the court’s rejection of their argument of criminal conspiracy was the real setback to the victims.

Earlier on June 2, the court had convicted 11 persons for murder and other offences, while 13 others, including VHP leader Atul Vaidya, were charged with lesser offences.

“The court in Ahmedabad sentenced one person to 10 years in jail and a dozen more to seven years”.

Tributes to the ones slain during the massacre.

“Today’s verdict is not that satisfactory. We must challenge it in high court”.

Tanvi said a message should go out to the nation that the law will not tolerate such things. Ms. Jafri said she would examine the possibility of appealing against the sentence. They were also part of the mob. In that sense, it is disappointing.

Civil rights activist Teesta Setalvad said it was a “diluted and weak” judgment and vowed to appeal against it. “The state may not exercise power of remittance”, the judge said, hastening to add that his advice could not be binding on the state.

The Gujarat riots, which erupted after a train auto full of Hindu nationalists was engulfed in a fire that killed 60 people inside, pitted mobs of Hindus against Muslims, who were widely blamed for setting the fire, though arson was never confirmed. The government failed to do its constitutional duty.

“All would like to say is that the people were brutally slaughtered there, I saw it all”. The BJP-ruled Gujarat most likely will.