AHMADABAD, India - A court sentenced nine Muslims to life in prison on Monday for murdering a Hindu nationalist leader to avenge the killing of Muslims in one of IndiaÂ’s worst Hindu-Muslim riots, a prosecutor said. Haren Pandya, 43, a former home minister in the western Gujarat state government, was shot dead after finishing his morning workout at a park close to his residence in Ahmadabad city on March 26, 2003.The Central Bureau of Investigation, IndiaÂ’s federal investigative agency, said the main suspect, Mohammed Asghar Ali, was hired by a Muslim cleric, Mufti Sufian, to kill Pandya to avenge the killings of Muslims in Gujarat a year earlier. Sufian was sentenced to life in prison, but he remains on the run.
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Violence erupted on Feb. 27, 2002, when Muslims torched a train car in the town of Godhra, killing 60 Hindus. Hindus retaliated, burning Muslim neighborhoods throughout Gujarat state. Police estimated 1,000 people were killed in one of the worst Hindu-Muslim riots in India.