Mayaben Kodnani, a sitting state legislator and former minister in Gujarat’s BJP government, and thirty others have been convicted by a so-called “fast track” court for the brutal massacre of 97 Muslims more than ten years ago in the Naroda-Patiya locality of Gujarat’s capital, Amhedabad.
The Naroda-Patiya massacre was part of an anti-Muslim pogrom conducted by Hindu communalists at the instigation of the BJP and its Sangh Parivar allies after 59 people, most of them Hindu communal activists, died in a Feb. 27, 2002 train fire in Godhra. The Feb-March 2002 Gujarat pogrom left well over 1,200 people dead and destroyed the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands more.
Narendra Modi, then as now Gujarat’s Chief Minister, played a particularly vile role in inciting the anti-Muslim violence. Without a shred of evidence that the Godhra fire was deliberately set, Modi blamed it on “Muslims.” He ordered the corpses of the Godhra fire victims to be paraded in the capital Ahmadabad to whip up communal sentiments and declared his government’s support for a “bandh” (total shutdown) call issued by the BJP’s communal partner, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, the World Hindu Council), to “protest” the Godhra killings.
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While the World Socialist Web Site is in principle opposed to the death penalty, there is clearly a marked contrast between the sentences meted out to those found guilty in the Godhra fire and the Naroda-Patiya massacre. Eleven of the Muslims framed up for the Godhra train fire were given the death sentence, while none of those found guilty of the wanton slaughter of Muslims in Naroda-Patiya was condemned to death.
It has taken India’s criminal justice system ten years, several judicial inquiries, and countless investigations to convict even one prominent government representative for having played a role in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom. This despite the existence of incontrovertible evidence that the whole state apparatus in Gujarat including ministers and the police were mobilized in the days following the Godhra train tragedy against the state’s Muslim minority. Full story...
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The Naroda-Patiya massacre was part of an anti-Muslim pogrom conducted by Hindu communalists at the instigation of the BJP and its Sangh Parivar allies after 59 people, most of them Hindu communal activists, died in a Feb. 27, 2002 train fire in Godhra. The Feb-March 2002 Gujarat pogrom left well over 1,200 people dead and destroyed the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands more.
Narendra Modi, then as now Gujarat’s Chief Minister, played a particularly vile role in inciting the anti-Muslim violence. Without a shred of evidence that the Godhra fire was deliberately set, Modi blamed it on “Muslims.” He ordered the corpses of the Godhra fire victims to be paraded in the capital Ahmadabad to whip up communal sentiments and declared his government’s support for a “bandh” (total shutdown) call issued by the BJP’s communal partner, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, the World Hindu Council), to “protest” the Godhra killings.
(...)
While the World Socialist Web Site is in principle opposed to the death penalty, there is clearly a marked contrast between the sentences meted out to those found guilty in the Godhra fire and the Naroda-Patiya massacre. Eleven of the Muslims framed up for the Godhra train fire were given the death sentence, while none of those found guilty of the wanton slaughter of Muslims in Naroda-Patiya was condemned to death.
It has taken India’s criminal justice system ten years, several judicial inquiries, and countless investigations to convict even one prominent government representative for having played a role in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom. This despite the existence of incontrovertible evidence that the whole state apparatus in Gujarat including ministers and the police were mobilized in the days following the Godhra train tragedy against the state’s Muslim minority. Full story...
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