AHMADABAD — An Indian court convicted a former state government minister and 31 other people Wednesday in connection with deadly anti-Muslim riots that shook the western state of Gujarat in 2002. The violence, which killed more than 1,100 people, almost all Muslims, began after a train fire on Feb. 27, 2002, that killed 60 Hindu pilgrims. Hindu mobs, convinced Muslims set the fire, rampaged through towns and villages burning Muslim homes and businesses. Rights groups and survivors have accused the state government, controlled by the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of not doing enough to stop the violence and even stoking it. The convictions Wednesday, on charges ranging from rioting to murder, stemmed from an attack in Naroda Patiya, a small industrial town on the outskirts of Ahmadabad, Gujarat's capital, that killed 95 people. Those convicted included Maya Kodnani, a state legislator at the time who later became minister of education and child welfare in the Gujarat government. She was arrested in 2009 on charges of murder and criminal conspiracy and has been in prison since. Kodnani broke down in tears as the verdict was pronounced, as did relatives waiting outside the court. Chief Minister Narendar Modi's proximity to Kodnani is likely to be an embarrassment for a politician widely thought to have prime ministerial ambitions but whose reputation was tarnished by the blood-letting only a few months after he was elected. The 61-year-old BJP leader, who is unable to gain a visa to the United States because of the riots, has been widely criticized for failing to stop them, but has consistently denied charges of wrong-doing. Out of 61 people facing charges, 32 were found guilty of murder and 29 were acquitted, prosecution lawyer Shamshad Pathan said. A leader of a local extremist Hindu group, Babu Bajrangi, who was filmed by an Indian news magazine in 2007 describing setting families on fire, was also among the convicted. “More than 90 people lost their lives, mostly children and ladies, all of them were defenseless,” public prosecutor Akhil Desai said, adding that he would push for the death penalty when sentences are handed down Friday. “If some of the accused are lucky enough to escape the death penalty, I will ask for life imprisonment, not for 14 years but for the rest of their lives,” he told reporters. — Agencies
