The Gujarat High Court has refused to disturb acquittals in two separate cases of violence linked to the 2002 riots and involving allegations of victims being “thrown alive into the fire” and chased down by mobs, dismissing the appeals filed by the State in 2003 and by an individual petitioner in 2007. In a judgment dated April 18, 2026 (which was made available on Thursday), a bench comprising Justice Nirzar Desai and Justice DN Ray of the Gujarat HC dismissed the appeal filed by the State challenging a 2003 order passed by the additional sessions judge of Vadodara acquitting five individuals accused of “throwing alive into the fire” a person named Samsuddin alias Kasam Khan in the Khodiyar Nagar area of Vadodara on February 28, 2002. The FIR, based on the complaint of Samsuddin’s neighbhour, stemmed from the “widespread communal disturbances across the state” in the aftermath of the incident of burning of the Sabarmati Express in Godhra on February 27, 2002, the judgment notes.…