Ahmedabad:
The BJP Friday welcomed the Supreme Court order convicting 12 people in the 2003 murder case of former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya.
The apex court set aside a Gujarat High Court verdict, delivered on August 29, 2011, which had absolved the accused of the murder charge.
The ruling BJP said the verdict was the result of the state government’s relentless effort.
“We welcome the order. It was due to the relentless effort of the state government that the accused were convicted,” BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya told PTI.
There was no immediate reaction from the Congress.
Pandya was the home minister in the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi-led government. He was shot dead on March 26, 2003, near Law Garden in Ahmedabad during his morning walk.
Speaking to PTI, his wife, Jagruti Pandya, said, “I will study the full judgement first and then give my reaction in a press conference.”
She is the chairperson of the Gujarat State Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
According to the CBI, Pandya was killed to avenge the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat.
Advocate Somnath Vasta, who represented some of the accused in the lower courts, said review and curative petitions may be filed in the apex court against the decision.
“I have told them about what they can do. They have to decide the next course of action,” he said.
For now, all those convicted will have to surrender in jail, he added.
The convicts in the case are Asghar Ali, Mohammad Rauf, Mohammad Parvez Abdul Kayum Sheikh, Parvez Khan Pathan alias Athar Parvez, Mohammad Farooq alias Haji Farooq, Shahnawaz Gandhi, Kalim Ahmeda alias Kalimullah, Rehan Puthawala, Mohammad Riaz Sareswala, Aniz Machiswala, Mohammad Yunus Sareswala and Mohammad Saifuddin.
