GODHRA TRAIN BURNING CASE

   The special fast track court on Tuesday, 1st March,2011, sentenced 11 convicts to death and 20 other to life imprisonment in the 2002 Godhra train burning case. The court, however, gave the convicts 90 days to appeal against the judgment in the Gujarat High court.
    The entire proceedings of the special court, beginning with the trial on May 1,2009 to the delivery of the final order on Tuesday. Delivering its judgment on February 22,the court held the 31 people guilty of conspiring and setting ablaze the s-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express on the outskirts of the Godhra station on February 27,2002.
    The train was returning from Ayodhya to Ahmedabad with a large number of Karsevaks' of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Fifty-nine were killed in the fire riots caused by the incident.  The court, how ever, acquitted 63 others, including Moulana Umarji, who the police earlier claimed was the master mind" of the conspiracy. The 11 convicts sentenced to death include Abdul Razzak kurkur,owner of the Aman guest house near the Godhra station where the court believed the meeting to' hatch the conspiracy' was held the night before the inc incident.  those who were found guilty in the Godhra train burning case have been awarded different punishment under various sections of the Indian penal code., but all sentences will run concurrently. Chief public prosecutor said.

Prof. John Kurakar