24 guilty in trial for 2002 religious riots in western India

An unidentified Indian man accused on a 2002 riot case waves to supporters as he arrives at Ahmadabad's court, India, Thursday, June 2, 2016. The court convicted 24 suspects, 11 of them for murder, for their part in religious riots in 2002 in western India with riot-related cases moving slowly through a creaky legal system. India’s judicial system is notorious for delays. The most high profile convictions in 2002 religious riots came ten years later when Maya Kodnani, a former government minister, and 31 others were convicted on charges ranging from rioting to murder, stemming from an attack in Naroda Patiya, a small industrial town on the outskirts of Ahmadabad that killed 95 people. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki) (The Associated Press)

NEW DELHI – An Indian court has convicted 24 suspects, 11 of them for murder, for their part in religious riots in 2002 in western India.

Special Court Judge P. B. Desai said Thursday that their sentences will be announced next week. Those convicted of murder could be sentenced to death.

The judge acquitted 36 charged in connection with the rioting in Ahmadabad, the main city in Gujarat state, in which 69 people, including former Congress lawmaker Ehsan Jafri, were killed by a Hindu mob.

The riots were triggered when Muslims set fire to a train carrying Hindu nationalists 2002, killing 60. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in three months of violence that hit the state after that.

Riot-related cases often move slowly through India's creaky legal system.