AHMEDABAD, India : An Indian court on Tuesday handed 11 death sentences and 20 life terms to Muslims convicted of burning Hindus alive in a 2002 train fire, triggering an orgy of revenge attacks that killed 2,000.
Last week, 31 Muslims were found guilty on murder and conspiracy charges for causing the train fire in the western state of Gujarat.
Fifty-nine Hindu pilgrims perished in the blaze at Godhra station, sparking an anti-Muslim backlash that resulted in some of India's worst religious violence since independence from Britain in 1947.
Hindu mobs hungry for revenge rampaged through Muslim neighbourhoods in several cities during three days of bloodshed.
A total of 94 people, all Muslims, had stood trial at a court in Gujarat's biggest city Ahmedabad where they had been detained since 2002. The judge acquitted 63 of them.
Responsibility for the fire has been the subject of fierce dispute between India's Hindu and Muslim communities, and the trial verdicts supported Hindu claims that it was a planned attack.
Previously, a national inquiry concluded that the fire was an accident, though other official investigations contradicted that finding.
The judge felt the crimes fell "under the category of the rarest of the rare", special public prosecutor J.M. Panchal told reporters outside the court.
"There was an active role, as far as these people are concerned, in the conspiracy and also setting fire to the coach," he said. Defence lawyer I.M. Munshi said all the men would appeal against the punishment. "It is very difficult to swallow," he said.
Extra police had been put on duty across Gujarat to prevent any outbreak of communal violence after the verdicts, but no unrest was reported.
Local authorities had also banned television stations and newspapers from broadcasting or printing the many graphic images taken during the riots to avoid stirring up religious tensions.
During the 2002 slaughter in Ahmedabad and elsewhere, witnesses said baying Hindu mobs surrounded and raped Muslim women, then poured kerosene down their throats and their children's throats and threw lit matches at them. AFP
