Other States - Gujarat   

POTA judge justifies not giving death sentence

Special Correspondent

Real guilty have not been punished: Haren Pandya’s father

AHMEDABAD: The designated POTA court judge, Sonia Gokani, who sentenced nine persons, including the principal accused Ashghar Ali, to life imprisonment on the charge of murder of the former Gujarat Home Minister Haren Pandya, has justified not giving the death sentence to any of the guilty. Since most of them were very young, she hoped they would utilise the period in jail to reform themselves and join the mainstream once freed.But Ashghar Ali, who was accused of actually shooting Mr. Pandya to death, though sentenced to life imprisonment, would have to spend the rest of his life in jail, she said.

The advocate for Ashghar Ali, Nitya Ramakrishnan, expressing her reservation over the judgment, said her client would appeal to the higher court. Reiterating her claim that her client was “not guilty,” she told journalists that many of the “lacunae” brought out by her in the CBI investigation into the case, but were not accepted by the POTA court, would be her main basis for review in the higher court.

The octogenarian father of the slain Minister, Vithhalbhai Pandya, was also dismayed over the judgment. The senior Pandya, who always maintained the Haren slaying was a “political murder,” having nothing to do with “revenge killing” as claimed by the prosecution, told journalists that he did not believe the actual guilty had been punished. Mr. Pandya, who was not permitted to be in the court when Ms. Gokani was delivering her judgment, pointed a finger at Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi himself.

“The CBI did what it was asked to do by the authorities,” Mr. Pandya alleged. He demanded a thorough reinvestigation of the case.

Ms. Ramakrishnan, who argued before the POTA court that Ashghar Ali could not be the killer as the position of Haren Pandya’s body in the car and the bullets lodged on his body suggest that he was shot at elsewhere and his body left in his car at the Law Garden spot, claimed that the Forensic Science Laboratory report was also flawed and would be an issue before the higher court.

A senior leader of the BJP, Mr. Pandya was the Gujarat Home Minister during the Keshubhai Patel Ministry and continued with the same portfolio briefly after Mr. Modi took over as Chief Minister. Later, he was shifted by Mr. Modi to the Revenue Department and held office till he resigned from the Ministry.

During the infamous communal riots in the State in 2002, Mr. Pandya was not in the Ministry and was believed to have developed serious differences with Mr. Modi on the riots.

Mr. Pandya was shot dead from a very close range in broad daylight as he was parking his car near the Law Garden in the city on March 26, 2003.

Initially the case was investigated by the local crime branch police but later it was handed over to the CBI. The CBI in all named 19 accused, of whom four are still absconding. The POTA review committee of the Central Government stayed the trial of three others under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

The prosecution had claimed that the murder was committed by Ashghar Ali and his accomplices to avenge the killing of Muslims during the communal riots in the State in 2002.

According to it, Ali and a few others had recruited young boys from Ahmedabad and Hyderabad and sent them for training in Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba terror camps in Pakistan.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

POTA judge justifies not giving death sentence

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu