Godhra train carnage accused held in Gujarat

AHMEDABAD: One of the absconding accused in the 2002 Godhra train carnage was arrested by the Gujarat police on Tuesday from Godhra, 16 years after the incident killed 59 Kar Sevaks on board and sparked off statewide communal violence.

Yakub Pataliya, 63, was arrested from Godhra by a team of B Division police after they received a tip-off that he was spotted on Tuesday morning, an official said.

“During patrolling, a team of Godhra B Division police received information about the presence of the accused in Vacha Odha area in Godhra. He was arrested soon after,” the official added. He will be handed over to the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing the case, the official said. Pataliya is accused of being a part of the mob that torched coaches of the Sabarmati Express near Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002.

An FIR was registered against him in September 2002 and he faces charges under sections 307 (attempt to murder), 143 and 149 (unlawful assembly), 147 and 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapons), 332 and 352 (causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 153 A (causing enmity among members of different religious g groups), among others as well as certain sections of the Railways Act.

Pataliya’s brother Kadir was arrested in 2015, and died in jail while undergoing trial. His other brother Ayub is serving life imprisonment in Vadodara Central Jail. In a judgment passed in October 2017, the Gujarat high court had commuted the death sentence of 11 to life imprisonment, while upholding the life sentence of 20 other convicts.