Almost a decade after the Gujarat riots of 2002,the first verdict in the nine post-Godhra cases monitored by the Supreme Court has been pronounced,and 31 people have been sentenced to life imprisonment by a special court for the deaths of 33 Muslims at Sardarpura village in Mehsana district. Among the victims were 17 women and 11 children. When the court lifted the stay on the trials of these nine major cases in May 2009,it had underscored the delay already caused and the need for early completion of sensitive cases. It was always clear that only a fully secure and committed legal process could bring closure for the victims of Gujarat 2002. Time and again,that process had been revealed to be vulnerable. In March 2008,the Supreme Court,fed up with the probes,had ordered a Special Investigation Team (SIT) be set up to investigate 10 cases,including the Godhra deaths. While the sentenced retain their right to appeal,due legal process is what has found its way through the trial. The single case of Sardarpura is a symbol and demonstration of how the state had failed its citizens in Gujarat by not providing them the security it is meant to and by not coming to their rescue as soon as it perhaps could have. The victims were mostly farm labourers while the convicted were the landowners,the former having reposed their trust in the latter should the violence spread to their Shaikh Vaas area. They were murdered,brutally,by these self-same employers and neighbours. Beyond the carnage of a riot,this was a case of betrayal. The story of the victims of Gujarat 2002 is a tale of betrayal at every level. It is this narrative that the legal process has to end. For his part,Gujarats chief minister,Narendra Modi,has never expressed remorse for the riots. And too often,the horrors are reduced to rhetoric inflated unnecessarily by some and defiantly ignored by others. For closure,Gujarat needs the legal process to work out an end and stick to the reality of what happened.
