Imaran Batuk, alias Sheru, one of the accused in sensational Godhra train carnage – a root cause of infamous Gujarat riots, was nabbed by Gujarat Police. The Ahmedabad Crime Branch on Wednesday said that the accused was nabbed from Malegaon in Maharashtra
This is fifth such arrest in last one year, in the case where miscreants set coach S6 of Sabarmati Express on fire near Godhara Railway Station on February 27, 2002, killing 59 people on their way back from Ayodhya after performing kar seva. The incident spiraled in to a massive communal strife in the State that saw over 1,000 lose lives to violence.
A senior police official in the Crime Branch said that they had picked up Imran who lived in Malegaon and was involved in illegal sand mining. He is notified as one of the main accused responsible for the train burning incident.
Earlier this year, the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Gujarat Police had arrested Farooq Bhana, one of the key masterminds of the Godhra incident. Bhana, a former councilor of Godhra had moved to Mumbai to evade arrest and later became a property broker.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) which probed the case had named 94 persons in the chargesheet. In 2011, the SIT court convicted 31 and gave death sentence to 11, with 20 being given life imprisonment. The case is now pending before Gujarat High Court.