Two Godhra carnage accused jailed for killing man last year

Vadodara: One person convicted in the 2002 Sabarmati Express carnage at Godhra and another accused acquitted in the same case were sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday for murdering a man last year.
The accused Kasim Abdu Sattar Gaji alias Kasim Biryani and Habib Binyamin Behera alias Badshah had beaten up the 30-year-old Mohsin Mamji. Mamji was admitted to the SSG Hospital at Vadodara with multiple fractures and internal hemorrhage and died on May 11 last year.
Following the death, the police added an offence of murder to the FIR and both were subsequently arrested.
Biryani was sentenced to life imprisonment in the train carnage case while Behera was acquitted by the trial court in 2011. Biryani was subsequently granted bail by the Gujarat high court in 2013.
Sources said that Biryani had lent Rs 500 to Mamji who wanted to go on a pilgrimage. When they got to know that Mamji did not go on the tour, they asked him to return the money. During a quarrel over the issue, they attacked Mamji on May 4 last year with a stick and a pipe, leaving him badly injured.
An accomplice of Biryani and Behera had even tried to mislead the doctors at the Godhra Civil Hospital where Mamji was first taken by stating that the victim had met with an accident.
Biryani had been kept in the Sabarmati Jail at Ahmedabad during his judicial custody in the murder case while Behera was lodged in the Godhra sub jail. The duo were brought to the Godhra court for the pronouncement of judgment on Thursday. After the judgment, Behera even tried to throw stones on media persons waiting outside the court campus to photograph him.