Bhagalpur: Seventeen years after the massacre of 116 people belonging to the minority community during the 1989 Bhagalpur riots, a local court today convicted the 14 accused, one of whom fled soon after the verdict was announced.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Shambhunath Mishra fixed June 27 for announcing the quantum of sentence.

The case involved the killing of 116 people, including women and children, at Logain village under Jagdishpur police station of the district where the victims were buried in a mass grave, which was camouflaged with cauliflower plantation to escape detection. The court also convicted the then officer in-charge of Jagdishpur police station Ramchandra Singh and Chowkidar Thakur Paswan.

Though there were 24 named accused in the case, six died during the trial, while four never turned up, prompting the court to proclaim them absconders and order attachment of their property. Those convicted are Kuldip Mandal, Arjun Mandal, Prabhas Mandal, Sukhdev Mandal, Subhash Mandal, Ajablal Mandal, Shivlal Mandal, Naresh Mandal, Jattu Mandal, Ramdev Mandal, Saryu Prasad Singh, Thakur Paswan, Ramchandr Singh and Jaiprakash Mandal.

Of these, Jaiprakash Mandal escaped soon after the verdict was pronounced and the court swiftly issued a warrant of arrest against him.

The accused were convicted under sections 302 (murder), 147 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly), 201 (causing disapperance of evidence of defence or giving false information to screen the offender) and 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with the intent to destroy house etc) of IPC.

The FIR in the case was registered on October 28, 1989, by one Ashraf Ali, who informed the police that several members of his family and others were done to death in the course of rioting in which Ramchandra Singh, the officer in-charge of Jadishpur police station, Saryu Prasad Singh, Ramdev Mandal, Kuldip Mandal, Subhash Mandal and others had played a key role.

The riots had led to a massive polarisation of Muslims against the Congress and resulted in the defeat of the party in the 1990 assembly elections after which the Janata Dal government led by Lalu Prasad was installed in Bihar. The Congress, in fact, has not been able to reclaim the Muslim support in the state ever since.