The court here relied on the testimonies of eyewitnesses who said that Atul Vaidya, a local VHP leader, Kailash Dhobi and Jayesh Jinger were among those who dragged out former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri when he stepped out of his house to mollify the mob. The mob hacked Jafri to death.
Vaidya, sentenced to seven years' imprisonment, was not found guilty of murdering Salim Abubakkar, as charged.
Narayan Tank, sentenced to life imprisonment, was among the leaders of the group which dragged Jafri out, as per the witnesses.
Jayesh Kumar Jinger threw bricks that killed one of the victims, and burnt the bodies by pouring inflammable liquid, witnesses said.
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Special judge P B Desai, however, acquitted K G Erda, an inspector attached to Meghaninagar police station in whose jurisdiction the Society stands. "It is very difficult to establish beyond reasonable doubt the culpability... Of a single police officer when the entire police force could be said to have been highly ineffective that day," said the court.
Atul Vaid, Mukesh Jingar, Prakash Padhiyar, Surendrasinh Chauhan, Dilip Parmar, Babu Marwadi, Manish Jain, Dharmesh Shukla, Kapil Mishra, Suresh Dhobi, Ambesh Jingar and Sandeep Punjabi were sentenced to seven years imprisonment.
BJP corporator Bipin Patel was among those who were acquitted, giving benefit of doubt.