New Delhi: Prominent rights activist Swami Agnivesh on Tuesday termed the sentencing of 11 people to death and 20 others to life imprisonment in the Godhra train-burning as a 'hollow verdict based on dubious evidence' while prominent lawyer Prashant Bhushan demanded a re-investigation of the case.
"The whole verdict appears to be weak as it is based on dubious evidence of a single person," Agnivesh told media. He recalled that the media had exposed the loopholes in the Godhra conspiracy theory.
"The verdict is a very weak, hollow one. It will come up for appeal in the higher court. I am sure the truth will come out at last," Agnivesh added.
According to him, the charge that Muslim conspirators collaborated with a Hindu vendor was unconvincing. The judge, he said, had 'based the judgment on the basis of dubious evidence of a single person'.
Meanwhile, Prashant Bhushan demanded a re-investigation into the case.
"It is a totally wrong verdict, based on wrong evidence," Bhushan told the media, shortly after a special court in Ahmedabad ruled on the quantum of sentence to the 31 convicted of conspiracy and setting on fire the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express on Feb 27, 2002.
"Though the sentenced persons can go to the higher courts, what is needed is a re-investigation. The case is based on wrong premise that warrants a re-investigation," Bhushan said. "On any account, the sentenced persons cannot be charged with murder and conspiracy. At the worst, they should be charged for arson," he said.
A special court in Ahmedabad on Tuesday sentenced 11 people to death and gave life imprisonment to 20 others for the February 2002 incident in Gujarat's Godhra town, in which 59 people were killed, triggering a communal frenzy that claimed an estimated 1,000 lives in the state.
The 31 people were convicted on Feb 22 and held guilty of conspiring and setting on fire the coach. The train, carrying many radical Hindu activists, was on its way back from Uttar Pradesh's temple town Ayodhya.
The court had acquitted 63 others, including alleged mastermind Maulvi Saeed Umarji.