AHMEDABAD: Gujarat high court on Tuesday granted regular bail to a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader, Atul Vaidh, who was sentenced to seven-year rigorous imprisonment by a special SIT court last year in the 2002 Gulbarg Society massacre case.While granting conditional bail to Vaidh, a bench of Justice Abhilasha Kumari and Justice A J Shastri observed, "We do not find that the suspension of the sentenced imposed upon the applicant (Vaidh) would have a momentously adverse impact or deleterious effect on society."The high court has granted bail to Vaidh on furnishing a bond of Rs25,000 and on condition of surrendering his passport before the court.The court agreed to suspend Vaidh's sentence till the outcome of his appeal against conviction, but refused to suspend his conviction.The bench said, "We find that there are no exceptional circumstances to refuse the suspension of the sentence imposed upon the applicant. None have been pointed out by the learned special public prosecutor and neither is there any submission regarding misuse of liberty in the past or an apprehension regarding the future."The prosecution strongly opposed Vaidh's bail plea and argued that his was a fit case for conviction for murder as the trial court had held him guilty of being part of the unlawful assembly that had attacked Gulbarg society. Vaidh was handed down a 7-year jail term by special judge PB Desai in June last year for lesser offences like arson, rioting etc.On June 17, the special court convicted 24 persons and acquitted 36 others in one of the biggest massacres that took place after Godhra carnage. Sixty-nine persons were killed in this incident on February 28, 2002. The court held 11 persons guilty of murder, while 13 others were punished for offences other than the grave offence.Meanwhile, the SIT has not received consent from the state government to challenge the acquittal or to seek enhancement of punishment for convicts in this case.

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