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High Court rejects re-trial plea in Haren Pandya murder case

Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat High Court has rejected a petition requesting for re-investigation and re-trial into the murder of the former Minister of State for Home, Haren Pandya, in which 12 people have been already convicted and sentenced to five years to life term by the special Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA) court.

A Division Bench of the comprising justice J. R. Vora and justice M. R. Shah found no case for re-trial and no reason to condone the delay in filing the application after the CBI opposed the petition. The petition was filed by the slain former Minister’s father, Vithhalbhai Pandya, who also wanted the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, be included as a respondent in the re-trial of the case.Mr. Pandya had right from the beginning maintained that his son’s murder was politically-motivated and was committed at the behest of Mr. Modi. He was unhappy that either the Detection of Crime Branch, Ahmedabad, which had initially investigated the murder case, or the CBI, which was handed over the responsibility after a few days of the incident, did not interrogate the Chief Minister or considered him as a possible suspect.

. Pandya was murdered on March 26, 2003, near Law Garden in Ahmedabad when he was alighting from his car for a morning stroll in the park. The CBI later arrested 12 people including three from Hyderabad, who were claimed to be contract killers and executed the job to take revenge for the killing of some Muslims in the post-Godhra communal riots in the State the previous year, even though Mr. Pandya was not holding the Home portfolio at the time of the communal holocaust.

The special POTA court judge, Sonia Gokani, on June 25, last year, pronounced the 12 accused as guilty in the case sentencing nine of them, including the Hyderabad-based alleged contract killers to life imprisonment and three others to five to seven years imprisonment. However, Pandya’s father felt that the POTA court’s judgement did not punish the “real culprits.”

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