Indore/Jabalpur: Seven convicts who were sentenced to life imprisonment in the 2002 post-Godhra riot case will start working as volunteers in the Narmada Kumbh from February 24.
On Monday, six of them convicted in the riots had reached police protection in Indore for the same purpose.
The Supreme Court last month granted bail to 15 convicts sentenced to life imprisonment for carrying out a massacre in Ode town of Gujarat’s Anand district in which 23 people were burnt alive.
The convicts were granted bail on the condition that they will stay outside Gujarat and do community services in Indore and Jabalpur. They will take up social/community services, meditation drill, and spiritual programmes as per the court directives.
Those who reached Indore on Monday are staying at a temple on Khandwa Road on the outskirts of the city and are engaged in services including cleaning of temple and manning shoe stalls. The District Legal Services Authority will send them to MY Hospital or another hospital for services in the next few days.
"Seven of these convicts reached Jabalpur on Tuesday night. They will be volunteering at the Narmada Kumbh," said MP State Legal Services Authority member secretary Giribala Singh.
An officer from the authority said that these accused first swept the temple floor and later washed it with water. Later they washed utensils of those who had meal at the shrine. All of them are service life imprisonment and were incarcerated for last eight years.
The Narmada Kumbh, held every five years, is scheduled to be held from February 24 to March 3 on the banks of the Narmada River at Gwarighat on the city's outskirts.
Apart from the Narmada Kumbh, these convicts will work as volunteers in the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, at old age homes, and take care of patients, who have no one to look after, in hospitals, Singh said.
Efforts will be made to help them in picking up work as per their choice under the smart city project underway here so that they can earn their livelihood, she said.
"All these works will inculcate in them a feeling of serving the community," Singh said.
Their identity was being withheld for safety reasons, she added.
(With inputs from PTI)
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