Jaipur: The Gujarat High court has granted ten days’ interim bail to Yakub Patalia, the main accused in the 2002 Godhra Sabarmati train fire case. The interim bail was granted on the ground that there was no one to take care of his wife and son during the coronavirus pandemic.
In his bail plea, Yakub Patalia stated that there was no one to take care of his 54-year-old wife, who suffers from 70 per cent physical disability and his 24-year-old son, who is jobless and on this ground had sought 30 days’ bail. The court, however, granted him ten days’ interim bail.
The High Court noted that Yakub Patalia would be granted bail only after his coronavirus report is found negative. The court directed Yakub to surrender before the jail authorities on expiry of the bail period.
The High Court had earlier rejected two of his bail applications this year. However, this time the court granted him ten days’ bail in view of his family’s condition during the coronavirus crisis. The High Court had earlier granted 15 days’ interim bail to another accused in the case Farooq Bhana.
The High Court has admitted Yakub Patalia’s petition challenging SIT court’s order sentencing him to life imprisonment on the charge of setting fire to the S 6 coach of the Sabarmati Express after halting it by pelting stones and pouring 140 litres of petrol inside the coach. Patalia was arrested in January 2018, sixteen years after the incident.
The Godhra Train Burning was an incident that occurred on the morning of 27 February 2002, in which 59 Hindu pilgrims and karsevaks returning from Ayodhya, were killed in a fire inside the Sabarmati Express train near the Godhra railway station in Gujarat.
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