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On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of India granted bail to four convicts in the Naroda Patiya massacre case in Gujarat, in which almost 97 people mostly belonging to a minority community were killed by a mob at Naroda, in Ahmedabad during the 2002 riots in the state of Gujarat. The massacre took place one day after the Sabarmati Express train burning incident at Godhra, which had sparked massive riots throughout the state.
A Bench led by Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice Rastogi while granting freedom to Umeshbhai Surabhai Bharwad, Rajkumar, Padmendrasinh Jaswantsinh Rajput held that the approach of the High Court while revoking the acquittal order of the Trial court, is questionable. The massacre at Naroda during the strike of Vishwa Hindu Parishad lasted for more than 10 hours and the people were looted, sexually assaulted and killed. While examining the questions of Padmendrasinh Jaswantsinh Rajput and Rajkumar alias Raju, the bench held the Gujarat High Court annulled the acquittal order approved by the Trial Court on the finding that the witnesses have established the applicant's presence at the crime scene even in the absence of a specific role played by the applicant. The accusation of his being a member of the illegal assembly must be valid. Prima facie, this approach seems to be doubtful, especially when the witnesses on which the prosecution relied upon are police officers and no identification of this applicant was made during the investigation by the police. The police officers named him after an interval of four days from the date of the incident that claimed to have seen the applicant in a group of people around the crime scene. The identification of the applicant before the court by the police officers (witnesses) cannot make the matter reliable unless they have personally known him in the past. It is stated that the applicant was present in a huge group of about 15,000 people gathered at the crime scene. The court, which upheld the application submitted by Umeshbhai Surabhai Bharwad, noted that the applicant was acquitted by the trial court after a long trial on the basis of the finding that he was named only by only two police officers and his name was not mentioned in the FIR. The court also recorded that the accused is being treated for HIV. The court has granted bail to Harshad alias Mungda Jila Govind Chhara Parmar because he had already been subjected to more than 5 years of prison life and the hearing of the appeal probably will not happen in the near future. Convicted Prakashbhai Sureshbhai Rathod, had prayed for temporary bail for the marriage of his daughter on February 10, 2019. Interim relief was granted to him for the period extending between January 28, 2019, and February 15, 2019, in accordance with the terms and conditions that could be imposed by the trial court.
On April 20, 2018, the Gujarat High Court upheld the conviction of 12 out of the 29 accused persons who were found guilty on various charges by the Trial court and had acquitted 17 others, including the former BJP minister, Maya Kodnani.
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