The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted bail to the four jailed for the Naroda Patiya massacre case in Gujarat expressing doubt at their conviction.
In one of the worst instances of communal rioting in Gujarat in 2002 following the Godhra train burning which killed 59 Hindu passengers, 97 Muslims had been attacked and killed by a mob at Naroda Patiya, close to Ahmedabad, on 2002, February 28.
The Supreme Court granted bail to the four convicted – Umeshbhai Bharwad, Harshad and Prakashbhai Rathod and Rajkumar stating that the ‘conviction order is debatable’. The top court added that it was ‘seized’ by appeals of others convicted in the case.
The four jailed had been convicted by the Gujarat High Court for arson and rioting and have been serving ten years of rigorous imprisonment since June last year.
Sixteen people had been convicted by the High Court, including Babu Bajrangi. Among those acquitted was former BJP minister Maya Kodnani. Finding that the offences were ‘not against individuals but society at large’, the High Court had noted in its sentencing on June 25 that a ‘lenient punishment’ would be tantamount to a ‘travesty of justice’. Any ‘liberal attitude’ in this regard would be ‘counter-productive’ as they were offences that result in ‘polarising society’, the court had added.
