A court convicted 12 Hindu men on Friday in connection with the gang-rape of a pregnant Muslim woman and the murder of her family in a trial seen as key to winning justice for victims of one of India's worst religious riots.
Human rights groups say about 2,500 people, most of them Muslims, were hacked, beaten or burned to death in the western state of Gujarat after a suspected Muslim mob burnt alive 59 Hindu activists and pilgrims inside a train in February 2002.
Among the closely watched Gujarat riot trials was the "Bilkis Bano" case viewed as testing whether justice can be delivered to hundreds of other Muslim women sexually assaulted during the riots.
Bano, her lawayers say, was three months pregnant in early March 2002 when she was gang-raped and 12 of her family members, including her three-year-old daughter, were burned to death by a mob as they fled their village in Gujarat.
In 2004 the Supreme Court moved the "Bilkis Bano case" trial to the neighbouring state of Maharashtra in response to pleas that a fair trial was impossible in Gujarat, ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. The court will read out the sentences on Monday.
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