Post-Godhra Riots: Gujarat Court acquits 19 persons booked for killing 17 from Muslim community

A sessions court in Panchmahal, Gujarat has acquitted 19 persons accused of killing 17 Muslim persons, including two children, in a rioting and murder case related to the Godhra Riots of 2002. .Additional Sessions Judge Harsh Trivedi on Tuesday acquitted the 19 persons for want of evidence and by invoking the principle of "Corpus Delicti" as the bodies of the victims were not found. Corpus Delicti, a Latin phrase that translates to "body of the crime", is considered an important concept in murder investigations. Applying the concept in the present case, Judge Trivedi observed in his judgment that:"There should be a body or at least a body of evidence for police to work with before charging someone with murder case. When someone goes missing and police don't have a body or at least a body of evidence how police can further proceed or work with which don't exist. It is general rule not to convict anybody unless Corpus Delicti can be established, that is until the dead body has been found. In instant case, when the forensic reports indicated that no DNA profiling results would be obtained from the completely charred bone pieces ' (alleged to have been of the missing persons) then automatically rule of Corpus Delicti was required to be considered," the Court said. .The accused men were arrested for allegedly killing 17 persons, the bodies of whom were allegedly burnt to destroy the evidence. The incident dates back to February 28, 2002, when the victims, living in the Delol village, were killed in the wake of communal riots that broke out in different parts of Gujarat. These riots took place a day after a compartment of the Sabarmati Express was torched by a mob near Godhra town in Panchmahal on February 27, 2002, killing 59 passengers. Most of the victims in the train were karsevaks who were returning from Ayodhya..A First Information Report (FIR) was lodged citing charges of murder and rioting. Another FIR for the same incident was registered two years later, in 2004 and, subsequently, the 19 accused in this case were arrested. Some of them died during trial. .Advocate Gopalsinh Solanki, who represented the accused persons, told Bar & Bench that the court did not believed the prosecution's version of events for want of evidence. "The prosecution failed to gather enough evidence against the accused persons, and even witnesses turned hostile. Even the bodies of the victims weren't found and the bones that the police recovered from an isolated place near a river were charred badly thus their identity could not be established," Solanki said.Therefore, the court granted the accused the benefit of doubt, he added. .On February 27, 2002, four coaches of the Sabarmati Express carrying pilgrims returning from Ayodhya, were set on fire by a mob. This had triggered widespread riots in Gujarat resulting in the death of more than 1,000 persons, as per reports. .[Read Judgment]