An Indian court began framing charges on Friday against Hindu men accused of gang raping a pregnant Muslim woman in a trial seen as key to winning justice for Muslim victims of the worst religious riots in a decade. 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.
The state government, slammed by the Supreme Court for turning a blind eye to the killings of Muslims during the riots, said the death toll was more than 1,000.
In August, the Supreme Court moved the trial of what has been called the "Bilkis Bano case" 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 (BJP).
"Bilkis was dragged ... to the slope of a hill nearby and three of the accused from the group raped her," said R.K. Shah, the federal prosecutor in a courtroom guarded by police with automatic weapons in Bombay.
"All the accused were aware that Bilkis was three months pregnant at that time."
The accused men were present in the packed court room but neither they nor their lawyers spoke in their defence.
Bilkis Yakub Rasool, who was gang raped as she tried to flee a Hindu mob, has said her fight for justice was also a fight for hundreds of other Muslim women sexually assaulted during the riots.
The chargesheet in the high-profile rape case is being framed two days after Zahira Sheikh, the key witness in another closely watched Gujarat riots trial called the Best Bakery case, withdrew her statement made to the Supreme Court.
The Best Bakery case, named for a Muslim-owned bakery where 14 people were hacked or burned to death in 2002, and the Bilkis Bano trial are seen as tests of whether justice can be delivered to thousands of riot victims.
In the Bilkis Bano case, federal police, ordered by the Supreme Court to carry out a new investigation, charged 20 people, including two members of the main opposition BJP and six state police officials.
The accused are being charged under different sections of the Indian Penal Code. Some are being charged with rape and gang rape, others for murder or destroying or falsifying evidence.
Twelve of Rasool's relatives, including her three-year-old daughter, were burned to death by a mob as they fled their village in Gujarat at the peak of the riots early in March 2002.
Officials say 4,252 riot-related cases were registered in Gujarat, but police dropped more than 2,000 for lack of evidence.
Non-government groups blame the low rate of conviction on intimidation by hard-line Hindu groups and widespread retractions of testimony by witnesses.
On Wednesday, Sheikh, in a stunning about-face in the Best Bakery trial, accused one of India's top human rights activists of pressuring her to make false statements to the Supreme Court.
In April, the top court ordered the retrial of the Best Bakery case after a Gujarat court acquitted 20 Hindus of the murders. It acted after Sheikh said at the time she had been intimidated into changing her testimony in the original case, leading to the acquittals by the local court.
She had initially implicated the accused and then backtracked.
Last week, another survivor of the Best Bakery killings, pointed out four attackers in court.