Naroda Gam massacre: Owaisi quotes Rahat Indori as all accused acquitted

Reacting to the acquittal of all sixty-seven accused in the Naroda Patiya massacre case, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi appeared to hit out at Gujarat’s ruling BJP, quoting from a poem of the late poet Rahat Indori.

“You leave behind smoke wherever you go, you cause chaos wherever you go. Politics has given you the right to leave a trail of blood on the fertile land. You are the appeal, you argue the case, you are the witness, and you are the lawyer. You are free to bad-mouth anyone, you are free to kill anyone,” tweeted Owaisi on Thursday night, hours after a special court in Ahmedabad announced the acquittals.

Those acquitted include former BJP MLA Maya Kodnani and ex-Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi. Additionally, eighteen other accused died during the course of the trial, while one person was discharged in 2009 due to ‘mistaken identity.’

What happened at Naroda Patiya?

Described as ‘one of the worst episodes of violence’ during the 2002 Gujarat riots, the episode unfolded on Feb 28, 2002, a day after 58 Kar Sevaks on board the Sabarmati Express were charred to death when the train was set on fire in Godhra. As many as eleven Muslims were killed by a mob in Ahmedabad’s Naroda Gam.

In 2008, a Supreme Court-constituted Special Investigation Team (SIT) had filed a charge sheet against 86 people; the SIT booked them under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Contrasting emotions outside court

Thursday’s one-line verdict by special judge Shubada Baxi was delivered amid tight security, with the police cordoning the city’s Bhadra Civil and Sessions Court compound area with barricades. Relatives of those acquitted welcomed the verdict with chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ (Hail Lord Ram) and ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ (Victory to Mother India), while the Muslim side described it as a ‘black day.’