Gulberg Society case: quantum of punishment to be pronounced on June 17

Correspondent, Ahmedabad:

A special court here today fixed June 17 for pronouncement of quantum of punishment to the 24 convicts of the Gulberg Society riots which had seen the killing of 69 people including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri on Februay 28, 2002 a day after burning of a coach of Sabarmati express in Godhra.

The court of Special Judge P B Desai had completed the hearing on quantum of punishment on June 10 and as per his order the jail records of convicts were put before him today.

SIT counsel R C Kodekar today said that the convicts will have to remain physically present on June 17 when the court would pronounce the punishment. The court had on June 9 ordered that the convicts should not be produced on next dates and if the need be their production through video conferencing would be done.

Notably, During the final argument Mr. Kodekar had reiterated his earlier stance seeking capital punishment or at least life term for the 11 convicts held guilty of murder terming it a rarest of rare incident. He also countered the defense counsel’s argument that the incident was a reaction to an earlier action
(Godhara incident) saying that there was no scope of revenge in the Indian culture. The defense on the other hand had sought leniency from the court on two main grounds; the incident being allegedly provoked by firing by Late Mr. Jafri in which one person died and 15 injured and the convicts not being professional criminals.

The court had held 24 of the total 66 accused guilty on June 2 while acquitted the remaining 36. Six had died during the trial. The court had in its order said that hearing on the quantum of punishment would be done from June 6. Of the 24 convicts 11 are held guilty under various charges including that of murder while one is guilty of attempt to murder and remaining 12 including VHP leader Atul Vaidya are guilty under lesser charges like rioting and unlawful assembling.

The court has dropped the charges of criminal conspiracy under section 120 B in the case.

The Gulberg Society case, which took place in Meghaninagar area of the city is one of the nine cases of the 2002 Gujarat riots probed by the Supreme Court-appointed SIT. The incident had taken place a day after S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express was burnt near Godhra train station on February 27, 2002 during which 58 ‘karsevaks’ were killed.