AHMEDABAD: After the Gujarat HC turned down the special trial court’s verdict convicting former minister Maya Kodnani, by giving her “the benefit of doubt”, survivors of the Naroda Patia massacre — where 97 people, mainly women and children, all of them Muslims — rued the verdict, saying they have no hope for justice.On Friday, the dingy lanes of Naroda Patia were desolate, save for the calls of children about the presence of mediapersons tearing into the uneasy calm. One kid yelled that Farida Aapa lived in the third lane. Farida Pathan (39) had her house burned in the 2002 riots. She said she fell on the road and suffered a miscarriage after being chased by a rioting mob.“I had seen Mayaben, Jaydeep Patel and Babubhai leading the mob. A few persons had chased me and kept screaming ‘kill that woman’. I had to flee with my husband and two kids. I kept running till I fell and fainted. It led to my miscarriage,” said Pathan, sitting on the floor of her tworoom house.Pathan had initially moved to a relief colony near the Pirana dumping grounds but they were forced to move back from there after the health of her husband Yusuf deteriorated. He died four years ago.Lamenting the verdict, Pathan said, “When people convicted for the heinous crime are acquitted, how can we expect ‘Acche Din’ for us?”Fehmida Pathan (60) asked, “Can I go to my place at Pirana? Will there be riots again? Is everything safe outside?”Another woman from the locality, Munni Mansuri (40), said, “We have to leave this locality during certain occasions like court verdicts, processions by right wingers and also on election dates.”

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