Justice is supposed to be blind, not enigmatic. The decision of a special investigation team court in Ahmedabad to acquit all 67 accused in the violence in Naroda Gam, one of the sites of the post-Godhra riots, might seem bewildering to many. Eleven members of the minority community were killed there in 2002; more than two decades later, it has to be asked whether the killings happened at all. If they did — and the families of those murdered are awaiting justice — who was responsible? For the 67 accused that the investigation had identified for all these years are apparently innocent. So is the investigation to begin again 21 years after the event or will the murderers, whoever they are, remain scot-free and the killings be passed over as one of those things? Among those freed are Babubhai Patel or Babu Bajrangi, formerly a Bajrang Dal leader, and Maya Kodnani, the former minister from the Bharatiya Janata Party who had been acquitted earlier in Naroda Patiya massacre case of the same time. The accused had not been in prison; they were out on bail. Patel, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Naroda Patiya case, received bail on medical grounds. Bail is another enigma: an aged, sick priest detained for months without trial for alleged links with extremists can be allowed to die in prison while those accused of rioting, conspiracy and murder, or even convicted, can roam free on bail. Should not the practice of bail be the same for all? Or, even, graded logically?

Blind justice heeds no narrative. Hence the Gujarat government’s 2022 decision to remit the sentences of the convicts in the 2002 gang rape of Bilkis Bano and the murder of her family, including her baby daughter, has nothing to do with the court’s acquittal of 67 others. Just as it has nothing to do with the Surat sessions court’s decision not to stay Rahul Gandhi’s conviction for defamation, which would mean the loss of his chair as Congress member of parliament. The quickness of summons and conviction in some cases, such as Mr Gandhi’s, provides a striking contrast to the slow progress in others. Twenty years after riots and murder is a long time for any trial, even if the ending is such a happy one for the accused.