AMN /
Sessions Judge P B Desai, who is conducting trial in the 2002 Gulberg Society riots case, on Monday visited the society in Meghaninagar area Ahmedabad, where 69 persons of the minority community, including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, were killed by a mob. Desai is the second judge in the case who has visited the crime scene. Justice B U Joshi, who was earlier conducting the trial in the case, had also visited the Gulberg Society in 2010. During the visit Desai was accompanied by S M Vora, who is an advocate of riot survivors, and special public prosecutor R C Kodekar as well as defence lawyers.
One of the main reasons behind his visit is to verify the claims made by several witnesses during the trial and to have an exact idea of the geography of the crime scene. According to Vora, the judge also wanted to personally verify some charges that some part of Society has been changed without due permission. The incident in the Society took place on February 28, 2002, a day after the Godhra train burning incident in which 59 karsevaks were charred to death.