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Gujarat Riots: India Court Jails 11 for Life over Gulbarg Massacre

Gujarat Riots: India Court Jails 11 for Life over Gulbarg Massacre
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A court in India sentenced 11 people to life in prison for their roles in a notorious massacre during the 2002 riots in Gujarat.

Gujarat Riots: India Court Jails 11 for Life over Gulbarg Massacre

Of the 24 people convicted for the so-called Gulbarg Society killings, 12 were jailed for seven years while one man was sentenced to 10 years.

During the attack, 69 people were hacked and burned to death by a mob.

More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in the riots, sparked by a fire on a train that killed 60 Hindu pilgrims.

Critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was the state chief minister at the time, said he did little to stop the riots.

The special court in Ahmedabad called the incident the "darkest day in the history of civil society".

However, Zakia Jafri, the wife of Ehsan Jafri, a prominent Muslim politician and a former Congress party MP, who was among those killed, has expressed disappointment at the sentencing.

"I was there when Ehsaan Jafri was killed, it's not justice at all," she told reporters.

Survivors of the Gulbarg massacre say he fired his gun in self-defence as the mob attacked the complex.
Jafri said her husband called Modi for help but it never came.

Modi had always denied any wrongdoing and had not apologized for the riots. A Supreme Court panel also refused to prosecute him in 2013, citing insufficient evidence.

The violence was initially investigated by the Gujarat police and subsequently by an independent Special Investigation Team [SIT] appointed by the Supreme Court in 2008.

The Gulbarg massacre was among 10 key incidents in the riots being investigated by the SIT.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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