Another 23 people were acquitted for lack of evidence in the case, in which rioters in the small Gujarati village of Ode bolted the doors of a house where Muslim families had taken refuge and then set it on fire.

Of the 23 who died in what became known as the "Ode massacre,” 18 were women.

The violence in Gujarat was triggered by the killing of nearly 60 Hindu pilgrims traveling in a train that was torched by a mob.

Some 31 Muslims were found guilty last year on murder and conspiracy charges for the train attack that sparked an anti-Muslim backlash.

Hindu mobs hungry for revenge rampaged through Muslim neighborhoods in several cities across Gujarat during three days of bloodshed that witnessed some of India's worst religious violence since independence from Britain in 1947.

More than 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, were hacked, beaten or burned to death.

Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi — a prominent member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party — was blamed for failing to stop the riots, with some critics arguing that he actively encouraged the violence.

The Ode massacre was one of several cases probed by a Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team.

The charges included murder, conspiracy, rioting, unlawful assembly, attempted murder and destruction of evidence.

During the trial, prosecution examined 158 witnesses, out of them 35 turned hostile. More than 160 documentary evidences were produced before the court by the SIT. After the hearing was over on March 21 last year, special judge Trivedi was transferred, and she resigned from judiciary the next month. Even the special prosecutor in the case also quit. The Gujarat high court appointed sessions judge P B Singh as special judge and senior advocate P N Parmar was selected by SIT as prosecutor in this case. Additional arguments on part of defense counsel ended in December last year.

One more case in Ode town is being probed by SIT, and the final verdict in this case is likely on April 16.

Out of the nine cases probed by the SIT, judgments have been pronounced in two cases, including the Godhra train burning incident where 11 people were awarded death sentence and 20 life imprisonment.

The second case was that of Sardarpura village in Mehsana district where 31 persons were awarded life term and 42 others were acquitted.