News
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Indian court convicts 31 Hindus of killing MuslimsAHMADABAD: A court convicted and sentenced 31 Hindus to life imprisonment on Wednesday for killing dozens of Muslims by setting a building on fire during one of India’s worst rounds of communal violence nine-year ago. Judge ST Srivastava also acquitted 41 Hindus of murder charges for lack of evidence. Those convicted can appeal the verdict in a higher court. Relations between Hindus and Muslims have been disturbed after partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan on independence from Britain in 1947. The worst recent violence erupted in 2002 in Gujarat state. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed by Hindu mobs after a train fire killed 60 Hindus returning from a pilgrimage. Muslims were blamed for the fire. During rioting, the suspects set a building on fire in a village in Mehsana district, nearly 40 kilometres north of Ahmadabad, the main city of Gujarat state. Thirty-three Muslims, including 20 women, who had taken shelter there, were burned alive. Two of the suspects died during the trial that was expedited by orders from India’s top court, the Supreme Court (SC). Muslims account for about 14 percent of India’s population of 1.1 billion but lag far behind the Hindu majority in most social indicators, from literacy to household incomes. Wednesday’s verdict was the first in nine cases of rioting and murder pending against hundreds of Hindu hard-liners. With the Supreme Court ordering a speedy trial of the suspects, the courts are expected to issue verdicts in the other eight cases within a year. Indian courts are notorious for long delays. The Gujarat state government, run by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, was accused of looking the other way when Hindu hard-liners attacked the Muslim community after the train fire. ap
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk