Almost one and half decades after the incident, a trial court in Kalol town of Gandhinagar district exonerated 28 men who were accused of rioting, arson and desecrating a spiritual place during the post-Godhra riots at Paliyad village on February 28, 2002. Notably, just a day after, a violent mob set the S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express on fire. The incident killed nearly 59 passengers.
Govind Patel, president of the Kalol Nagrik Sahkari Bank is among those acquitted in the lack of the evidence. All the accused persons were out on bail since 2002.
As per the police complaint, a mob of over 200 people torched properties of the minority community, targeted a shrine in the village and damaged a part of it. However, there was no casualty reported during this occurrence of rioting.
But then, during a trial conducted by additional sessions judge B D Patel, some of the witnesses did not turn up as they had migrated from the village. Even people who appeared before the court did not recognize any of the accused and were stated hostile by the prosecution.
This led the court to make a decision in its order on January 31 that there was no considerable evidence to nail any of the accused persons, said sources.
Witnesses told during the trial that they did not have any issue with the accused as members of both communities had reached a compromise.
Even the advocate Bhavesh Raval who was representing the accused maintained that the victims of the riots were suitably compensated and there was an environment of peace and harmony in the village after the compromise.
Following the Godhra carnage on February 27, 2002, communal hostility occurred across the state and 1,169 persons lost their lives over the next 3 months in Gujarat.
