File photo: Coach S6 of the Sabarmati Express that was burnt on February 27, 2002.

A special Special Investigative Team (SIT) court on Wednesday (March 20) sentenced convict Yakub Pataliya to life imprisonment in 2002 Godhra train carnage case. Three others were acquitted by the court.

Yakub Pataliya, one of the most wanted accused in the 2002 Sabarmati Express burnig case, was on the run for 16 years and arrested in January, 2018 by Gujarat Police.

Pataliya is accused of being a part of the mob that torched the coaches of Sabarmati Express near Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002, killing 59 kar sevaks and triggering state-wide riots.

The SIT court in August, 2018 had sentenced two other accused to life imprisonment while three others were acquitted by the court. On February 27, 2002, a date that would change the history of Gujarat forever, coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express went up in flames, killing all 59 occupants, most of them kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya.

Soon after the burning, rumours regarding the incident and a supposed conspiracy to kill the kar sevaks spread and triggered massive riots in the state. Nearly 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, had died in the riots, according to official estimates.

The Godhra burning was investigated by a SIT and on March 1, 2011, a special court convicted 31 people and acquitted 63 while accepting the prosecution's argument that there was a conspiracy to burn Coach S6 of the Sabarmati Express.

11 of the 31 convicts were given the death penalty while the remaining were given life imprisonment. All the 31 were convicted under IPC sections related to murder, attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy.

Both, the convictions and the acquittals, were challenged in the Gujarat High Court.

The Gujarat High Court in 2017 commuted the death sentence awarded to 11 persons to life imprisonment.