Naroda Patiya
and Gulbarg Society, two places in Ahmedabad where the most dastardly
massacres took place on 28th February, 2002, are just 4 kilometers
apart. Yet, the judgments that have been pronounced in these two cases
are many a miles apart. 14 long years after the mob attack on Gulbarg
Society, the trial court yesterday announced its ruling on the Gulbarg
massacre where 69 people were mercilessly murdered. The special trial
court judge PB Desai convicted 24 persons while acquitting 36 accused.
Many a big names were among those who were acquitted. At the same time,
the special trial court also dropped the conspiracy charge on the
pretext of ‘lack of evidence’. While pawns are often sacrificed at the
altar of justice, the suggestion that the assembly of pawns acted on
their own volition without a guiding strategy is difficult to digest.
Four years ago, on 29th August 2012,
Special judge Jyotsana Yagnik gave out the historic judgment in the
Naroda Patiya massacre where she held 32 people responsible for the
horrific deaths of 97 people including men, women, children. Among the
32 was former Gujarat Minister Mayaben Kodnani (A-37) who was convicted
of the offense under section 302 read with section 120-B of I.P.C. where
in Section 120-B deals with criminal conspiracy. The special judge made
the following observations to justify the punishment of life
imprisonment to Maya Kodnani.
A-37 has been proved to be the kingpin of the entire communal riot and one of the principal conspirators who has actively instigated the rioters and has abetted them to form unlawful assembly to execute the conspiracy hatched under her leadership with other co-conspirators.
The other important conviction in this
case was that of Babu Bajrangi (A-18) who was sentenced to suffer
rigorous imprisonment for remaining period of his natural life. The
special judge made the following observations in the case of Babu
Bajrangi.
A-18 is one of the principal conspirators, active overt actor of the communal riot on that day, leader and instigator for he co-accused as far as Naroda massacre is concerned. Over and above this, he was also an active member of the unlawful assembly in atleast two of the occurrences including the ghastly evening occurrence.
Thus a clear case of criminal conspiracy
was made out in case of Naroda Patiya and the kingpins were identified
along with the foot soldiers. However, for a similar case that happened
just 4 kms away in Gulbarg society, the only prominent conviction is
that of Dr. Atul Vaidya and it was pronounced that there was no criminal
conspiracy. Are these two cases totally unrelated? Were BJP/VHP/Bajrang
Dal leaders involved in rioting in neighbouring areas acting
independently? The phone calls between Dr Atul Vaidya and Babu Bajrangi
narrate a different story. Let’s look at the call records between Atul
Vaidya (9825289048) and Babu Bajrangi (9825020333) from 27th February,
2002, to 1st March, 2002. 27th February is when the S6 coach in Godhra
was burned down causing the unfortunate death of 59 people and 27th to
1st March was the main period in which most of the rioting happened. [. . .]
