Other States - Gujarat

Chargesheets filed in Gulmarg Society and Naroda-Patiya massacre cases

By Manas Dasgupta

AHMEDABAD June 4. The crime branch police have filed chargesheets against the accused in the gruesome Gulmarg Society and Naroda-Patiya massacre cases in Ahmedabad in which about 130 people were burnt alive on the Gujarat Bandh day on February 28 in the aftermath of the Godhra train carnage.

While in the Gulmarg society case in Meghaninagar locality, where about 40 people including the former Congress member of the Lok Sabha, Ehsan Jafri, were burnt alive, chargesheets have been filed against 50 people, including 25 still absconding, in the Naroda-Patiya case the police filed chargesheets against 23 of the 28 arrested and informed the court that chargesheets would be filed against the remaining five subsequently as they were still under police remand and questioning was in progress.

At least 21 more accused in the Naroda case were still absconding. Some of the accused were claimed to be common in both the cases. Some police officials indicated that the police still could not find any evidence of involvement in the Naroda-Patiya carnage of the ruling BJP MLA and the party's Ahmedabad unit president, Mayaben Kodnani, the VHP State general secretary, Jaideep Patel, and some other VHP and Bajrang Dal leaders named in the first information report. They have neither been arrested nor declared absconding and chargesheets filed.

However, some senior Bajrang Dal and VHP leaders, including Babu Bajrangi and Kisan Korani, who also is one of the directors of the State Minority Welfare Board, were among the five accused still in police remand against whom chargesheets would be filed later, the police said.

Along with the chargesheets the police have attached statements of as many as 360 eye-witnesses in the Gulmarg Society case and 385 eye-witnesses in the Naroda-Patiya case. Also attached were the reports of the Forensic Science Laboratory which point out that kerosene, petrol, diesel and such other highly inflammable materials were used in both the cases to establish that the crime committed was intentional and planned.

The charges against the accused include murder, rape, arson, criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly and looting of some of the valuables from the houses later set afire, as well as attack on the police.

In the Naroda-Patiya case, the police are still investigating into a case of ripping open the womb of a pregnant woman and throwing both the foetus and the mother in the burning fire.

Meanwhile, the State Government has decided to provide two months' rations free of cost to each family voluntarily leaving the relief camps and returning to their homes. In Ahmedabad, there are still close to 70,000 people in various relief camps. With the schools scheduled to reopen next week, pressure is building on the Government to make alternate arrangements for the relief camps housed in municipal school buildings. The Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, has made it clear that none of the relief camps would be forcibly closed down unless the last of the inmates returned home voluntarily.

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