A special court in Ahmedabad on Thursday acquitted all 68 accused, including former Gujarat Minister Maya Kodnani, Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Jaydeep Patel and former Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi, in the Naroda Gam massacre case of 2002, wherein 11 Muslims were killed during communal riots.

Special Judge for the Special Investigation Agency (SIT), S.K. Baxi, passed the order.

Total 86 people were accused in the case, out of which, 18 died during the trial.

On February 28, 2002, 11 people belonging to the minority community were killed during communal violence at Naroda Gam area of Ahmedabad. The incident took place during a bandh, which was called to protest against the Godhra train burning incident of February 27, 2002, in which 58 passengers, mostly Karsevaks returning from Ayodhya, were burnt alive.

The trial, which started in 2010 with S.H. Vora as Judge, went on for almost 13 years, witnessing six judges presiding over the case. Justice Vora was elevated to the Gujarat High Court. Later, the hearings were conducted under Jyotsna Yagnik, K.K. Bhatt and P.B. Desai, who all retired during the trial.

Total 187 and 57 witnesses were examined by the prosecution and the defence, respectively, during the trial.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah appeared as a defence witness for Kodnani in September, 2017. The former BJP MLA had requested the court to summon Shah to prove her alibi that she was present in the Gujarat Assembly and later at the Sola Civil Hospital and not at Naroda Gam where the massacre took place.

The Prosecution produced the video of a sting operation carried out by journalist Ashish Khetan, along with call details of Kodnani, Bajrangi and others during the relevant period, as evidence.

The accused were booked under Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 143 (unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapons), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), and 153 (provocation for riots) of the Indian Penal Code, among others. The maximum punishment for all these crimes is death.

Kodnani, a former MLA, was convicted and sentenced to 28 years in jail in the Naroda Patiya riot case, in which 97 people were killed during the 2002 Gujarat riots. She was later discharged by the Gujarat High Court.

The former BJP leader was charged with criminal conspiracy, rioting, murder and attempt to murder in the present case.

Mumbai: A Special Court in Mumbai today rejected the bail requests of Rhea Chakraborty & her brother Showik Chakraborty who has been in the thick of news in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case – and other accused persons, who were arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with a drugs possession and dealing case. 

Special judge G. B. Gurao heard the arguments made by Rhea’s lawyers Satish Maneshinde and Special Public Prosecutor Atul Sarpande.

The applicant has been arrested for an offence punishable under Sections 8(c) read with 20(b)(ii),22,27A,28,29 and 30 of the NDPS Act, 1985.

Today, is Riya’s third day in jail. The first day the court ruled that Riya spent her night in an NCB lockup. The next day Riya was shifted to Byculla jail. Near Riya’s cell is the cell of Indrani Mukherjee, accused in the Sheena Bora murder case.

NCB inquiries had revealed that Riya and her brother had links with many drug peddlers. Riya and Showik are accused of buying and selling drugs. Riya clearly said that she used to buy drugs for Sushant. At the same time, his brother Showik revealed that at the behest of Riya, he too used to buy these drugs for Sushant.

In her bail request, Rhea Chakraborty had retracted her confession and said she was “coerced into making self-incriminatory confessions”. She said she had “not committed any crime whatsoever and had been falsely implicated in the case”. She had also claimed rape and death threats and “a severe toll on her mental health and well-being” because of multiple investigations.

However, the Narcotics Control Bureau argued that if released on bail, the actor

Rhea Chakraborty had conscious knowledge of drugs use by her boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput, said the agency, and had “made herself part of this offence by procuring drugs” for him.

The anti-drugs bureau said Rhea Chakraborty used her credit card and payment gateways to facilitate financial transactions related to dealing of “illicit drug trafficking”.  It also insisted her confession was “voluntary”, not coerced, and admissible in the court of law.

Read Also: Don’t stifle dissent, rebels with British era laws

The anti-drugs agency said the drugs financed (by Rhea Chakraborty) were not meant for personal consumption but for supplying them to another person.

Rhea Chakraborty will stay in Byculla jail, where she was taken after a magistrate sent her to judicial custody till September 22. Her lawyer will now approach the Bombay High Court for bail.

-India Legal Bureau