The Gujarat High Court, in an order on November 25, suspended the life sentence awarded by a lower court to the three remaining convicts of the 2002 Gulbarg massacre and released them on bail as their appeal against the sentence was before the Gujarat HC. is pending. Along with this, all the 11 convicts sentenced to life imprisonment in this case are released on bail pending their appeal.
The three convicts – Yogendrasinh alias Lalo Shekhawat, Bharat Teli Bhalodia and Krishnakumar Kalal – had filed applications before the HC seeking suspension of sentence and release on bail pending final decision on their appeals in 2020 and 2021. A total of 24 people were convicted. In June 2016, a sessions court had sentenced 11 people to life imprisonment.
Advocate Kshitij Amin, representing the three convicts, mainly submitted that the role allegedly played by Shekhawat and Bhalodia is “less serious” than the role played by the other convicts – Lakhansingh alias Lakhio Bhurio Lalubha Chudasama and Dinesh Prabhudas Sharma – and almost a similar role was played by another accused-convict Bharat Laxman Singh by Bhagwan Rajput.
Since the HC had already suspended the sentences of Chudasama, Sharma and Rajput and extended them on bail pending their appeal, the present accused-convicted applicants should also be released on bail and their sentence should be extended pending appeals. should be suspended, argued Amin.
In Kalal’s case, it was submitted that his role in the crime was almost as serious or “similar” to that of the other co-accused, who were released on bail following the suspension of their sentences pending appeal.
According to eyewitnesses, Kalal was part of the mob that “entered the society from the front of Gross” and “armed with burning rags and burnt the slave master’s rickshaw and destroyed the surrounding shops” of the mob. was part. But Advocate Amin submitted that this is not supported by other witnesses. According to the statement of another prosecution witness, Kalal was part of the mob and “draged and shouted and assaulted Ehsan Jafri”, but according to Amin, this statement was also not supported by another prosecution witness. did.
As submitted during the proceedings, based on the statements of the witnesses, Shekhawat, along with other accused persons, was part of the mob, who entered the society from behind with a sword, but no weapon was recovered. Was.
“The only allegation against the present applicant (Shekhwat) is that he has instigated the mob. According to the applicant, the witnesses told about the involvement of the applicant before the SIT in the year 2008… none of the testimony of the said witnesses can be called credible or reliable.”
Bhalodia’s witness statement attributed him to being part of a mob that attacked two persons with “lethal weapons near Ankur Cycle Store”, but it was the case of lawyer Amin that the witnesses looked at the accounts with a sword. Gaya Bhalodiya describes, “but is not attributed to the overact”.
A division bench of Justices A J Desai and Sameer Dave took into account the similarity of the other eight accused convicts, who were released on bail following suspension of appeal pending their sentence, and also considered the fact that the respondent prosecution agency SIT “Couldn’t install more. The role of the applicant (three accused-convicts) vis–vis the role played by those accused persons, who have been elevated,” by the HC on earlier bail.
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