Call records lend weight to Sanjiv Bhatt's claimed presence at meeting with Modi Telephone records accessed by The Hindu lend credence to a crucial affidavit filed by a journalist backing senior police officer Sanjiv Bhatt's claim to have attended the controversial 2002 meeting at Narendra Modi's residence where the Gujarat Chief Minister allegedly said Hindus should be allowed to vent their anger against Muslims in the wake of the Godhra carnage. The...

The special court that sentenced 31 people for burning 33 Muslims to death in Sardarpura, Gujarat, did not find enough evidence to support the prosecution’s conspiracy theory. This was one of the reasons the defence argued successfully for life sentences for its clients, held guilty of murder and rioting. Principal judge S C Srivasatava’s 1,024-page judgment explained why seven incidents from 2002 — some of which the prosecution cited in 2008...

The special court that sentenced 31 people for burning 33 Muslims to death in Sardarpura, Gujarat, did not find enough evidence to support the prosecution’s conspiracy theory. This was one of the reasons the defence argued successfully for life sentences for its clients, held guilty of murder and rioting. Principal judge S C Srivasatava’s 1,024-page judgment explained why seven incidents from 2002 — some of which the prosecution cited in 2008...

Sardarpura, 50 km from Mehsana town and not far from Vadnagar, home of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, had been declared a Samras village, part of one of the first schemes launched by Modi after he took charge in 2001. Under the scheme, a village could appoint its sarpanch unanimously without an election. In Sardarpura, sarpanch Kachra Tribhovan Patel and former sarpanch Kanu Joitaram Patel were among the accused. Both were among...

-Express News Service   A special riots court awarded life sentences to 31 people, mostly landed Patels of Sardarpura village in this district, for killing 33 Muslims who were employed as their farm labourers and were their neighbours, to avenge the Godhra train burning of February 27, 2002. Of the dead, 17 were women and 11 children. Principal District Judge S C Srivastava convicted them for murder, rioting and promoting enmity between different...