A special court, which sentenced 31 persons to life imprisonment in the 2002 Sardarpura riot case, has said in the judgment that there was no conspiracy and the rioters had a clear intention of killing Muslims to take revenge for Godhra train burning.
Thirty-one persons convicted in the 2002 Sardarpura riot case of Mehsana district on Monday withdrew their regular bail plea from the Gujarat high court.
A special court in Gujarat on Wednesday convicted 31 of the 73 accused in the 2002 Sardarpura post-Godhra riot case, in which 33 people of a minority community were burnt alive. Mahesh Langa brings you a chronological order of how the case unfolded.
A special court in Gujarat on Wednesday convicted 31 of the 73 accused in the 2002 Sardarpura post-Godhra riot case in which 33 people of a minority community were burnt alive. The quantum of punishment is likely to be pronounced later in the day by principal District and Session Judge S C Srivastava after hearing the convicts. Out of the 42 acquitted, 11 were freed due to lack of evidence, while 31 were given the benefit of doubt.
Y B Sheikh, the lawyer who represented the victims' of Sardarpura massacre, has said that the judgement convicting 31 persons for life and each culprit fined Rs 50,000 are the bright sides of the verdict of the special court.
The court said that all the convicts will have to undertake community services for six hours a week besides reporting to the local police station on a weekly basis as bail conditions.
Union Minister of State Kailash Chaudhary was among the first to cast his vote, exercising his franchise in Balotra.
The Congress is yet to declare candidates on a majority seats as its Central Election Committee will meet on Sunday to finalise names for more seats.
As results were declared for assembly elections in four states -- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana -- here are how some of the prominent candidates fared.
Seventeen of the 25 ministers in the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government in Rajasthan, including Govind Ram Meghwal, who also led the party's campaign committee, lost in the assembly elections.
"The Congress is "going to (fight) the election with unity" and it will win the polls," Sharma said after the meeting at Pilot's Civil Lines residence that lasted for nearly half an hour.
Apart from the Naroda Gam case, seven other 2002 post-Godhra riots cases were investigated by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team.
"I sometimes think of leaving it, but the chief minister's post doesn't leave me," Ashok Gehlot famously said earlier this year, in part as a signal to the Congress top brass not to pick someone else for the job if the party wins the assembly polls.
These are the 15 seats to watch out for in Rajasthan where assembly elections will be held on November 23. The state has 200 constituencies.
The Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in Rajasthan on Sunday, winning 115 seats out of the 199 where assembly elections were held last week.
Since 1993, when the BJP came to power after a stint of President's rule, the state has alternated between the Congress and the BJP.
The accused was nabbed by a team of Bandra police station and is being brought to Mumbai, an official said.
Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Vasundhara Raje, Satish Poonia, Kailash Choudhary: Who will it be if the BJP comes to power in Rajasthan next year?
On the last day of campaigning at Pokhran in Rajasthan, Bhartiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi took potshots at the son-in-law of chairperson of United Progressive Alliance Sonia Gandhi, Robert Vadra.
As the five states -- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram -- go to the polls, here is how the big names are faring.
The year 2011 will be remembered in Gujarat for verdicts related to the Godhra train burning incident and the riots that followed.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and some of his cabinet colleagues, including Shanti Dhariwal, figure in the list of 63 Congress candidates for the forthcoming assembly polls, announced by the All India Congress Committee.
Gehlot and Pilot, however, dismissed suggestions that there was any infighting among the state leaders and asserted that they will unitedly take on the BJP.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, state Bharatiya Janata Party chief Vasundhara Raje and Pradesh Congress Committee president Chandrabhan were among 861 candidates who filed their nomination papers for the Assembly elections on Monday.
Ashok Gehlot can never be a challenger to the first son of the Congress party. The Scindias and Pilots will be Rahul's rivals should the party's fortunes revive, says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Apart from being the CM twice earlier, he has won a series of Lok Sabha and assembly elections from the state and headed the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee four times.
The bench hailed the work done so far by the SIT and allowed the request of Salve, while asking A K Malhotra, another member of the SIT, to oversee the functioning of the probe team.
A special trial court in Gujarat on Friday acquitted all six accused in the 2002 post-Godhra riots case in which three British nationals and their Indian driver were killed at Prantij town in Gujarat's Sabarkantha district, for want of evidence against them.
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked a trial court in Ahmedabad to wind up within three months the proceedings in Gulberg Society massacre case of 2002 Gujarat riots in which former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri and 67 others were killed.
In outgoing Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's home district Jodhpur, BJP has won nine out of ten assembly constituencies, with Gehlot the only winning candidate of the Congress party.
He said he is 'more than satisfied' with his long political career as a five-time Lok Sabha MP, three time Union minister and chief minister for 10 years.
Two state ministers have also come out in the open to demand a detailed assessment by the top leadership.
Riding a strong anti-incumbency wave coupled with Narendra Modi factor, BJP on wrested power from Congress decimating it by grabbing a three-fourth majority in the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly.
Amid stray violence, Rajasthan on Sunday witnessed a record turnout of 74.38 per cent in the assembly election, which will decide the fate of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Bharatiya Janata Party's Vasundhra Raje among others.
At places in the border districts of Barmer and Jaisalmer, people walked miles through the desert to cast their votes.
Telangana and Rajasthan are the last states to go to the polls in the current round of assembly elections, which also covered Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.
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