Godhra case: Death sought for all 31 convicts

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) sought on Friday death sentence for 31 people convicted of the Sabarmati Express train carnage.

However, the special court judge PR Patel deferred the pronouncement of quantum of punishment to March 1, after hearing the defence and prosecution arguments for three hours.

 “We demanded death sentence for the 31 convicts before the special court under charges of murder and conspiracy,” JM Panchal, special public prosecutor, said.

When asked on what grounds they were seeking death sentence, Panchal said: “We can’t disclose such grounds at present as the judge has to evaluate the grounds tendered by us.”

The prosecution has demanded capital punishment by arguing that the incident is a “rarest of rare cases”.

The court was expected to announce the punishment on Friday.

Defence counsel IM Munshi said that submissions of both sides were over and they had demanded minimum punishment for the convicts. “The defence lawyers submitted before the court that the incident was a reaction to misbehavior by kar sevaks at Godhra station,’’ Munshi said.

The defence submitted that death penalty should not be imposed on the convicts considering the individual role played by them in the incident, their past history, family circumstances, and the time they have already spent in jail.

The prosecution argued that 59 innocent lives were lost and 48 people were injured in the burning of the S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express and submitted that the case was of “brutal murder and criminal conspiracy”.