An Indian court docket has acquitted 69 Hindus, together with a former minister from the ruling Bharatiya Janata get together (BJP), of the homicide of 11 Muslims throughout communal riots within the western state of Gujarat in 2002.

The case associated to the deaths of 11 Muslims who have been killed after their houses within the metropolis of Ahmedabad have been set alight by Hindu mobs who rampaged through the streets throughout communal riots that passed off in February 2002. According to an investigation into the assault afterwards, “there was no police help received by the Muslims and they were simply at the mercy of the miscreants”.

Thursday’s verdict by the particular court docket dealt one other blow for these nonetheless preventing for justice for the Gujarat riots. Over the previous twenty years, the state has been accused of defending alleged Hindu perpetrators – together with those that now maintain a few of the strongest political workplaces within the nation – in addition to obstructing justice, intimidating Muslim victims and not too long ago releasing a few of the few who had been convicted of rape and violence in opposition to Muslims within the riots.

Shamshad Pathan, who represented the victims, stated they might problem the court docket’s determination in a better court docket. “Justice has eluded the victims once again,” he stated.

The Gujarat riots started after Muslims have been suspected of setting alight a train carriage carrying Hindu pilgrims, sparking revenge attacks by Hindu groups in what grew to become one of many worst outbreaks of religious bloodshed in India’s post-independence history. Officially about 1,000 folks died within the violence, principally Muslims, however civil society teams say the quantity was a lot larger.

India’s present prime minister, Narendra Modi, who leads the Hindu nationalist BJP authorities, was chief minister of Gujarat on the time and was accused of complicity in the bloodshed by permitting the Hindu teams to hold out the revenge assaults and inspiring police and authorities to not intervene to cease the violence. Modi denies any position and a supreme court docket panel discovered there was not sufficient proof to prosecute him.

In this specific case, 86 Hindus have been accused however 17 had died in the course of the trial. Among these acquitted was Maya Kodnani, a former minister for Modi, who was a lawmaker on the time of the riots. She was additionally an accused in a case regarding the homicide of 97 folks in the course of the riots and was convicted however later cleared by a better court docket.

Those concerned in rightwing Hindu vigilante teams Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which each have shut hyperlinks to them BJP, have been additionally among the many accused cleared of expenses. As the decision was introduced, cries of “Jai Sri Ram”, a Hindu non secular greeting that has been more and more co-opted and weaponised by Hindu nationalists as a battle cry, have been shouted outdoors the court docket.

“We have been saying from the first day that they were framed,” stated the defence lawyer Chetan Shah. “Some of the accused were not present at the scene on the day of the incident.”

The acquittal of the 69 comes after the Gujarat authorities, which remains to be dominated by the BJP, not too long ago determined to offer early launch to 11 Hindu convicts who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for the gang-rape of a Muslim girl and the homicide of members of her household, one of many few convictions efficiently made within the Gujarat riots.