After almost 20 years, Harshad Solanki and Mafat Gohil, who were accused in the Vadodara Best bakery case, were acquitted by sessions court in Mumbai on Tuesday.
In the aftermath of Godhra riots of 2002, violence had erupted at various locations across Gujarat. One such instance was of Best Bakery in Vadodara, where 14 people were killed, of which 12 belonged to a Muslim family running the bakery.
On March 3, 2022, around 1,000 people attacked Best Bakery at Hanuman Tekri, looted bakery items, pelted crude petrol bombs and set the shop on fire. The attackers drew the family of the bakery owner, Habibulla Shaikh, and employees out on the promise of letting them off with minor beatings, but killed them, including women and children.
In this case, 21 people were charged with murder. All were acquitted by the local court at Gujarat in this case. This was after most of the witnesses, including the main witness and complainant Zahira Shaikh, turned hostile. It was Zahira’s family which was killed in the incident. Zahira and several others said they had been pressured.
In order to ensure fair trail, Supreme Court transferred this case to Maharashtra, on Zahira’s plea. It was the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that filed a petition before the Supreme Court, wherein order for retrial in several riot cases, including the Best Bakery was pronounced.
When the trial began in Mumbai court, nine people were held guilty on several charges including murder and were sent to life imprisonment. In 2012, the Bombay High Court acquitted five of the nine accused, while confirming punishment given to four of them.
However, when other accused were facing trial in communal riots case, two accused — Harshad Solanki and Mafat Gohil — were absconding.
A separate trial was started for them. They were brought before the sessions court in 2013, and the trial against them began in 2019. Both of them have been behind bars since 2010 and 2013, respectively, in Ajmer blast case as well.
However, on Tuesday, special judge M Deshpande said that in the previous trial, eyewitnesses specified the roles played by some of the accused based on which they were convicted. In this case, no specific roles were attributed to the two of them.
What is the development on Godhra case and other cases related to it
Supreme Court in April this year granted bail to eight accused in the train burning case while hearing the bail plea of 31 Godhra riot convicts. A trial court had earlier sentenced 11 convicts to death penalty while 20 of them were sentenced to life imprisonment. The Gujarat High Court had upheld their conviction but reduced the death sentence in the case.
Ahmedabad court had earlier acquitted 68 accused in this case, including Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Maya Kodnani, former Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi and Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s (VHP) Jaydeep Patel in the Naroda Gam case, wherein 11 people were killed.
Naroda Gam was among nine post-Godhra cases for which the Supreme Court constituted an SIT and ordered the setting up of special courts for speedy prosecution.
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