Yakub Pataliya, one of the key accused in the 2002 Godhra train carnage who was arrested on Tuesday, is alleged to have been part of the core team that planned the attack and reportedly pulled the chain that led to the train halting near the A cabin of Godhra station.
Pataliya (63) has been remanded to the custody of the special investigation team investigating the carnage till February 9. Pataliya was arrested from Godhra by the B division team of police.
Fifty-nine persons, the majority of them kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya, were burnt alive when the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express was attacked on February 27, 2002.
According to information, Pataliya was not only part of the team that planned the incident but was also part of the mob that attacked the train.
What is surprising is that while Pataliya managed to evade arrest even 16 years after the incident, the police also “did not know his whereabouts.” Importantly, according to information, Pataliya possessed an Aadhaar card and had also taken benefit of a government scheme for medical assistance.
Sources said that local residents were sympathetic to Pataliya as he was very poor and hence had not tipped off the police for so long.
His brother Ayub is serving life imprisonment; another brother, Kadir, died in the jail during trial. Kadir was arrested in 2015.
The Gujarat High Court in 2017 had commuted the death sentences of 11 persons to life imprisonment and had upheld life sentences of 20 other convicts.
Earlier, the trial court had convicted 31 persons and acquitted 63 others. The acquittals were upheld.
Nine accused are still at large in the case.
The train carnage had sparked off widespread communal riots in Gujarat that left over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.
