Gulbarg Society massacre convicts being taken away from the SIT court in Ahmedabad Friday after the announcement of sentences. PTI photo
Ahmedabad, June 17: Calling the Gulberg massacre the “darkest day” in the history of civil society, a special SIT court Friday awarded life terms to 11 convicts for burning alive 69 people, including former Congress MP Eshan Jafri, in one of the worst riots post-Godhra violence in 2002.
However, the judgement left the prosecution, Jafri’s widow Zakia and civil rights activists disappointed saying it was lenient on the perpetrators of the worst type of violence that had taken place in a residential colony in Gujarat’s capital.
Special court judge PB Desai rejected the demand for death sentence for all convicts and said life imprisonment for the 11 will be till death. The judge refused the death penalty saying, “If you look at all aspects, no previous antecedent has been placed on record.” He awarded a 10-year jail term to one of the 13 people convicted for lesser offences while the other 12 have been given a seven-year sentence each.
The prosecution had argued that all the 24 convicts should be given death penalty.
The court said it has decided to award imprisonment for life without any time frame to the 11, who have been convicted for murder, while requesting the state not to use its power to remit the sentence after 14 years of imprisonment.
“CrPC provisions give power to the state to remit sentence after 14 years jail. Section 433-A imposes some restriction on that power. In case the state does not exercise power to remit the sentence, life imprisonment will mean that it is till death,” the court said.
“I cannot add beyond what has been prescribed under Section 302. It is not necessary for a state to exercise power to remit sentence. The state may not exercise power of remittance,” the judge said, adding the court’s direction cannot be binding as he cannot take away the executive powers of the state.
SIT’s special prosecutor RC Kodekar said they would appeal in the high court as he felt the sentence was too “lenient”. Kodekar was upset especially after the court’s refusal to add “till death” clause in the life sentence awarded to 11 convicts in the case.
“Today’s verdict is not that satisfactory. We feel the sentence is lenient and inadequate. During arguments, we had appealed to the court that life imprisonment till death should given to all. We are not convinced with the penalty awarded,” said Kodekar.
Zakia Jafri said life sentence should have been given to all the convicts. Activist-lawyer Teesta Setalvad, who has been appearing in cases relating to the Gujarat riots, said “we are very disappointed. We had argued for exemplary punishment of life sentence for the convicts and there is no ground for leniency to the persons who were indulging in rioting from 9 am to 6 pm.” PTI