India Godhra train blaze verdict: 31 convicted
LONDON. February 22. KAZINFORM A special court in the western Indian state of Gujarat has found 31 people guilty of setting fire to a passenger train in the town of Godhra in 2002; Kazinform refers to BBC News.
The court acquitted 63 other people of conspiracy and murder.
The Sabarmati Express was attacked by a Muslim mob killing 59 people, mainly Hindu pilgrims.
The attack led to some of the worst riots seen in India and left more than 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, dead.
Gujarat's authorities were criticised for not doing enough to stop the riots.
Those convicted will be sentenced on Friday. Security is tight across Gujarat and extra police have been deployed in case of communal unrest.
Conspiracy
The attackers were said to have forced the train, carrying Hindu pilgrims from Ayodhya, to stop and then set fire to one of the carriages.
"The court has accepted the conspiracy theory. It was not an accident," public prosecutor JM Panchal is quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.
Whether or not there was a conspiracy to set the train ablaze or whether it was a spontaneous fire has long been the subject of dispute.
An inquiry commission set up by the state government said in 2008 that the burning of the train was a "conspiracy".
That commission also exonerated Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi over the deadly religious riots that followed the blaze.
He was accused of failing to halt the religious violence and some opponents said he indirectly encouraged some of the Hindu rioters. But the commission dismissed these allegations; Kazinform cites BBC News.
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