Gulberg verdict is sad: Sreekumar

Thiruvananthapuram, June 17 A former senior Gujarat police officer, R.B. Sreekumar, on Friday said he was disappointed by the verdict on the 2002 Gulberg Society massacre that left 69 people dead.

"The verdict is disappointing and sad," Sreekumar told the media here.

"Look, 69 people lost their lives and just 11 have been given life imprisonment. This is wrong," said Sreekumar, who hails from Kerala and lives in Gandhinagar in Gujarat.

Sreekumar was the Additional Director General of Police in Gujarat when the incident took place.

A special court in Ahmedabad on Friday gave life imprisonment to 11 of the 24 persons convicted in the massacre of 69 people, including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, at the housing society.

Twelve convicts got jail for seven years and one was sent to prison for 10 years.

Sreekumar said the Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by R.K. Raghavan, formerly of the Central Bureau of Investigation, which probed the case functioned as a "special immunization team" to give then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi a clean chit.